Scientists offer quantum theory of soul's existence

Its a news.com.au story so take it with a grain of salt...
..but it has some interesting merit and theory's. I don't believe in life after death but the notion that there could be makes me a little happier (I think).

A PAIR of world-renowned quantum scientists say they can prove what Hindus and Buddhists have always believed - the existence of the soul.
American Dr Stuart Hameroff and British physicist Sir Roger Penrose developed a quantum theory of consciousness asserting that our souls are contained inside structures called microtubules which live within our brain cells.
Dr Hameroff, Professor Emeritus at the Departments of Anesthesiology and Psychology and the Director of the Centre of Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona and Sir Roger have been working on the theory since 1996.
Their idea stems from the notion of the brain as a biological computer, "with 100 billion neurons and their axonal firings and synaptic connections acting as information networks".
They argue that our experience of consciousness is the result of quantum gravity effects inside these microtubules - a process they call orchestrated objective reduction (Orch-OR).
In a near-death experience the microtubules lose their quantum state, but the information within them is not destroyed. Or in layman's terms, the soul does not die but returns to the universe.

argh thats fucking bullshit! when will humans realise we are not special!

for a more scientific rebuttal: brains are fundamentally noise filters. to think quantum affects have play on the brain is to show total ignorance of how a brain functions.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't be so sure that humans are not special.

I maintain that human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reductionism, with its claim in promissory materialism to account eventually for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This belief must be classed as a superstition.... we have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world.

Some of the most sophisticated and provocative material I've read on the nature of the universe and man's true nature and place in it is the Seth material by Jane Roberts. Roberts claimed to have channelled a spirit entity that came through spontaneously one night as Roberts and her husband experimented with using a Ouija board. This entity who claimed to have once been human but had evolved beyond the human stage called himself Seth. Seth was an appropriate name since Seth claimed to be a very old soul and Seth was the name of Adam's first born in the bible. Seth began coming through regularly while Roberts was in a trance state. During the sessions Seth refers to Roberts as 'Ruburt' and uses the masculine pronoun 'he' for Roberts despite being aware that Roberts was a woman and Seth refers to Robert's husband Robert Butts as 'Joseph'.

Seth claimed to have known both Roberts and her husband through various past lives and this familiarity enabled Seth to come through Roberts with her co-operation while she was in trance to give an important message to mankind about the true nature of reality and man's real nature which Seth reveals is much greater than most people think with (some of) mankind being capable of benefitting from such a message. Millions of people have since read the Seth material and have been given hope and inspiration from the message which is that humans are much more than they ever dreamed and are part of something far more wonderful than they could imagine. Roberts asserted that she had no recollection of anything that occurred during each channelling session and when she and her husband realised what was happening Robert's husband began writing down in short-hand what Seth said through his wife while she was in a trance state (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O7pvuUCawI&feature=relmfu).

Over many hundreds of these sessions Seth reveals the nature of reality, why we are here and our destiny. What was revealed is detailed, mind boggling, voluminous (the Seth material spans over 16 books) yet consistent and non-contradictory all the way through. I've seen a scientist quoted as saying that the Seth material is consistent and compatible with quantum physics. The huge volume of material and the breadth and scope of what it covers and its consistency makes it almost inconceivable that Roberts and her husband could make up such material for profit and if what Seth reveals is true we are more special than any of us ever imagined. Much of the huge body of work comprising the Seth material was dictated by Roberts in trance in front of a weekly audience so if it was faked it was a remarkably sophisticated act of fakery continued over many years by a moderately educated and otherwise unremarkable woman and her equally unremarkable husband.

To try and explain how the material came about some have suggested that it may have come from Robert's own unconscious mind i.e. her 'higher self' but if it did then her unconscious had access to some of the most complex and profound concepts ever conceived and the question arises as to where her unconscious got it from. Close friends of Roberts have confirmed that Roberts was afraid that people would regard her as God-like because of the scope and profound nature of the material and this was the last thing she wanted. Cynics who immediately reject anything that conflicts with their rigid worldview (including many members of overclockers) will automatically dismiss the material (without reading it) saying that Roberts and her husband made it all up for money and fame but if you are intelligent, open minded and actually read the material you may conclude as I did that no person could make up the material in the Seth books-one book yes covering a narrow range of concepts but not the enormous depth and breadth of complex concepts meticulously covered in the 16 or so books comprising the Seth material. The final possibility is that Roberts really did channel a highly advanced soul that was once human and who returned to communicate a message of hope and to enlighten mankind as to its true nature because mankind (at least some of it) was ready for it and in doing so ushered in the beginning of a new age of enlightenment.

The Seth material confirms that the observer (us) and the observed (the universe) are involved in an interdependent relationship with everything in the universe having consciousness and being part of a unified field. One of the many concepts that Seth goes into is time. Seth claims that the long held traditional concept of time is erroneous and that time isn't lineal the way we think it is. According to Seth the past, present and the future are all taking place simultaneously not sequentially as we think! This doesn’t mean that our futures are already determined. Seth explains that each of us has many ‘probable’ and ‘possible’ futures and we determine which of these we experience. All of the possible futures exist simultaneously and in the afterlife after we evolve sufficiently we will be able to see what would have occurred had we acted differently at major points in our life. Seth also confirms that reincarnation is real but says that all of our reincarnational lives are being lived simultaneously and our soul (which is a kind of super self and far greater than each of our reincarnational lives) is also engaged in other dimensions while simultaneously learning from all of its reincarnational lives. According to Seth everything we are experiencing is a mental creation which we are so immersed in that we can't see that it's a self created play! All of this will eventually become clear to us after we evolve to the point where we no longer need to come here for human experiences.

Through my own readings I have found that some of the things that Seth says to do with reincarnation and the nature of time correlate remarkably with what others that claim to have channelled people from the afterlife have also described. One example is the charming and classic book on the afterlife 'Testimony of Light' by Helen Greaves which you can download using the link below:

Helen Greaves spontaneously channelled her close friend Frances Banks soon after she died and wrote down what her friend revealed about the afterlife and one of the things Frances Banks reveals is that in the afterlife you are able to pull out any section of the life you lived and relive it exploring what would have happened had you acted differently. This is precisely what Seth reveals that you can do in the afterlife in the book 'Seth Speaks'.

In the book 'Testimony of Light' Frances Banks also says that people who die traumatically arrive at a kind of hospital in the afterlife where they undergo a period of renewal and recovery and Seth says the same thing. Seth points out that the only reason this ‘hospital’ exists is that people that have had traumatic experiences on earth haven’t realised that their handicaps, traumas etc. no longer exist except as memories of the life just completed. If they realised this there would be no need for the stay in the ‘hospital’. In my readings I've come across many similar examples of the same thing being said but coming from different sources which suggests that there may be some truth to the material. The sneering cynics among you would say that the book that Helen Greaves wrote was bullshit written for money but after reading it I concluded that it couldn't have been written for such a purpose. The writer would only have made a pittance from writing the book and it is obvious when you read it that the writer is sincere and greatly loved her friend Frances Banks. The writer believed what she wrote so either it was Helen Greaves imagining she channelled her friend or she really did (I believe she did) and what the book says about the afterlife correlates closely with things that Seth says in 'Seth Speaks'.

Two remarkable stories I've come across that support what Seth says about reincarnation involve children (who are far less likely to be lying). Both stories are highly credible and strongly evidential of reincarnation being true. I urge you to at least watch the first story on YouTube because it's so compelling and convincing that only the most closed minded of you would say it was concocted and that the girl and her mother were lying.

The first story involves a young girl called Mandy Seabrook who recalls a previous life under hypnosis. You can watch the girl while hypnotised by Australian researcher Peter Ramster giving details about how she was previously born to the same mother and is the reincarnation of her mother’s previous daughter who had died while very young some years earlier. You will also see the mother talking about things her daughter Mandy spontaneously revealed to her when she was younger (and not while hypnotised) about her previous life and how she told her mother things that even the mother didn't know that turned out to be correct. The link can be found at ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZkvJUd8luQ ). If you think the girl and the mother are lying after watching the YouTube video then you are closed minded in the extreme (and many on overclockers are when it comes to a topic like this) and wasting your time reading my post.

The second story if anything is even more impressive than the above case and can be found at the following website which has a treasure trove of evidence supporting the existence of both an afterlife and reincarnation:

If you go to the section titled 'Top 20 Reincarnation Cases' and click on the link 'One More Mission' or click on this link: http://www.aeces.info/Top40/Cases_51-75/case65_one-more-mission.pdf you can read the story of a young boy who had remarkable recall of a previous life as a fighter pilot in World War II. The level of detail and the type of details that the boy spontaneously reveals about his previous life as a fighter pilot (with some of it being intimate and not known to anyone other than the remaining family of the fighter pilot) is amazing and makes it basically impossible that the boy read it somewhere or learnt it from some outside source. The cynics amongst you with narrow rigid worldviews (of which there are many on overclockers) would say that the boy, his parents and the remaining relative of the fighter pilot (a sister) got together and concocted the elaborate story (for no benefit other than attention) because it's the only explanation that enables you to preserve your narrow, rigid worldview that reincarnation and an afterlife don't exist yet after reading the story if you were to go to the following link on YouTube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuwtDawOIN8 ) you can watch the boy speaking along with his parents and if you still think they are liars after doing that then as I indicated earlier you are closed minded in the extreme and wasting your time reading my post.

Both of these children lost the memory of their previous life as they got older and in the book 'Seth Speaks' Seth confirms that some young children remember past lives but that the memory fades as they get older just as happened with these two children. The evidence for reincarnation provided by these two children strongly supports what Seth says about each of us having lived before and having to keep coming back until we fulfil our human potential. When we have fulfilled our human potential (how this is determined remains a mystery) we get to stay on the other side and evolve in other dimensions.

As well as hypnotising Mandy Seabrook Australian researcher Peter Ramster has hypnotised hundreds of other people regressing them back so that they recalled their previous lives (as well as details about the afterlife they lived in between lives) and he has travelled with some of these people to the places they recalled and checked out the details and they have proven to be true. Ramster by the way found that not all people he hypnotised recalled past lives (one possible reason is that they could not be hypnotised deeply enough to access the portion of their unconscious mind containing past life memories) but most did. Ramster's website can be found at ( http://www.aramaiglobal.org/home.html ). He has written a couple of excellent books ('The Search for Lives Past' and 'The Truth About Reincarnation') outlining what he discovered from regressing many hundreds of people. You can purchase these books in PDF format from his website and they are well worth reading.

I’ve read the two books Ramster has written and the evidence for reincarnation and an afterlife that Ramster provides by recounting what some of the people revealed about their past lives under hypnosis and how he travelled (in some cases to the other side of the world) with them to verify the details of their accounts is absolutely stunning. In some cases the person that remembered a past life revealed far more about the history of a local area (which in some cases was on the other side of the world) than the locals knew yet historical records and experts in the history of the area verified the accuracy of the details provided. Many of the details given by people recalling past lives are obscure e.g. giving the location of a staircase in a building which had since been moved or a description of landmarks at a specific location over 200 years ago that had long ago disappeared or speaking and writing in an old language that no longer existed etc yet these were verified as being accurate by independent experts. It's almost inconceivable that these people could have learned these details by reading them somewhere. Ramster didn't just verify a few cases of recalling of past lives he checked many by going to the places described with the person that recalled the past life to check the details or he checked the details against historical records or sent the evidence to be checked by experts and time and again he found that the details given proved to be accurate.

One of the past lives that Peter Ramster describes in his book ‘The Search for Lives Past’ was that of a woman named Gwen McDonald who in a deep hypnotic trance recalled a life that she lived in England from 1765 to 1782. In the book Ramster devotes 85 pages of his book giving the reader the details of this recalled past life. Later Ramster, Gwen McDonald and a film crew travelled to England to see if Ramster could verify the details and the result was amazing.

Peter Ramster confirmed detail after detail of Gwen McDonald's story. Many of these details were so unique, obscure and specific that the Gwen McDonald could not conceivably have learned this information in any other way unless her past life recall under hypnosis in Australia of having lived in England almost 250 years ago was true!

The following are just a few examples of a great many specific details given by Gwen McDonald about her past life in England almost 250 years ago that Peter Ramster verified by going to the place in England where Gwen recalled she had lived. I could have given many more examples of details that Peter Ramster verified that are included in his book ‘The Search for Lives Past’ but it would have made my post even longer than it already is:

Example 1: Under hypnosis Gwen McDonald speaking in an old English accent as Rose Duncan, which was her name in her past life, used the word ‘tallet’ to describe a room in the ceiling of her house or a loft room that she slept in. When Ramster investigated this at first he could not find the word but he persisted and after a great deal of searching he discovered the word in the library of Taunton in Somerset in a book of obsolete West Country words.

Tallet was a word used in the west country of England, where Gwen recalled having lived, during the time of Gwen's previous life, to refer to a room under a roof, such as a loft. It isn't used now and was used only in the west country of England, or as mentioned, where Gwen recalled having lived.

― 'The Search For Lives Past' by Peter Ramster​

Click to expand...

Example 2: When Ramster and Gwen McDonald searched for her house they found it still existed (although it had not surprisingly been modified somewhat since Gwen claimed to have lived in it nearly 250 years earlier) but before going to the rear of the house Ramster asked Gwen to draw what it looked like from the rear. She did this and when they went around the back while the shape she drew was correct there was a window where there should have been a door and one window was missing. What Ramster found on entering the house however verified that Gwen McDonald's drawing was accurate despite it initially appearing to be wrong.

Using a light from the film equipment, we entered the old building. We examined the wall where the window should have been and found that it had been closed up with stones. We had been unable to see this from the outside because of the ivy. When they had extended the side of the cottage, they had added one door at the front, closed one door at the rear making it a window, and sealed the existing window. Gwen had been correct in her detail, but we had to enter the inside of the building to confirm it. The floor of the building was stone as Gwen had stated. It had a tallet, and there was a drying room out the back, exactly as Gwen had described.

― 'The Search For Lives Past' by Peter Ramster​

Click to expand...

Gwen McDonald broke into tears when she saw the rear of the house and recognised it as her home in her past life. Quoting Peter Ramster from his book:

When we turned the corner it was virtually the same as drawn. Knowing it was her old home, despite the fact that it had been added to, Gwen suddenly broke into tears for the first time. The emotion had overwhelmed her. To us it was simply finding the old home. For Gwen, the recognition of the rear of the old home and the fact it was as she had described, and remembered, with the lean-to, brought a flood of memories of times long gone, and tears.

― 'The Search For Lives Past' by Peter Ramster​

Click to expand...

You can see the actual moment described above when Gwen McDonald broke into tears on seeing her home from her past life in the next YouTube video link I give.

Example 3: Under hypnosis Gwen McDonald recalled an incident as a child when she cut her foot some distance from her home and was taken by a neighbour in the back of his cart to his house where the neighbour bandaged her foot with a piece of rag. While in the back of the neighbour's cart she recalled that she saw stones that the neighbour said he was going to use to make a stone floor to replace the dirt floor in his house. One stone had several distinctive markings including the stone mason’s mark consisting of 3 indentations which the woman under hypnosis described as ‘three fingers’. She also described a couple of other distinctive markings on the face of the stone. After some difficulty finding the house Gwen McDonald found it for Ramster and his film crew and it had now been turned into a shed for raising ducks and chickens. On entering the house to try and locate the distinctive stone that Gwen McDonald had described Ramster found only a dirt floor covered with chook and duck shit but he asked the farmer if he was willing to check if there was a stone floor underneath. The farmer obliged and dug the dirt floor up and sure enough the original stone floor was still there! Ramster then found the unique stone that Gwen McDonald had described while regressed under hypnosis in Australia that as a young girl in her past life she had noticed while riding in the neighbour’s cart and had drawn a picture of.

On comparing the stone to Gwen's drawings, the similarity was obvious. The markings that Gwen had drawn on paper, and told about, matched the stones. The markings on the left hand side of the stone matched her description, and the large spiral was on the right hand side of the stone. There was enough to show that Gwen's drawings of the markings certainly matched the markings on the old, blue-grey stone she had led us to. Added to this, on the top left hand corner of the stone, were the three vertical lines Gwen had referred to as the three fingers, or stonemason's mark. This was a most remarkable find. .... There is no explanation possible in usual terms, as it couldn't have been read about, or seen in a television program, or anywhere else. It was the definitive piece of evidence I had been looking for.

― 'The Search For Lives Past' by Peter Ramster​

Click to expand...

You can see Gwen McDonald in the following YouTube video. Her story is part of a documentary that Peter Ramster made about how he verified the past lives of several people that were recalled under hypnosis back in Australia. It is one of the most important documentaries ever made on reincarnation.

In the YouTube video link below you can also watch Peter Ramster discussing how he verified the past life recall of a woman called Cynthia Henderson. Her past life recall along with that of Gwen McDonald and another woman Jenny Green and how Peter Ramster verified their stories are recounted in detail in Ramster's book 'The Search for Lives Past' obtainable from his website (see: http://www.aramaiglobal.org/online-shop.html ):

Gwen McDonald’s recall of having lived in that part of England almost 250 years ago was amazingly accurate eliminating any possible doubt about the truth of her story. Later after returning to Australia under hypnosis Gwen McDonald revealed to Peter Ramster that she would die 10 years later in 1989 and go to the afterlife to prepare for her next life on earth and 10 years later she died just as she had predicted. How is it possible that she knew when she would die? The unconscious mind which is accessible under hypnosis knows infinitely more than the conscious mind. I could say that the unconscious is God within you but this would bring howls of protest from the many know-alls among you that 'know' that 'human beings are not special' and that there is no such thing as a God.

The story of Gwen McDonald is not the only one where a recalled past life has been verified but it is one of the most important because of the great number of unique, obscure and specific details that were verified of which I've given only a few (there are a great many more similar examples I could have given). Gwen McDonald's story supports what Seth says about reincarnation but what will the members of the overclockers forum with narrow rigid worldviews who 'know' that reincarnation is bullshit and that 'humans are not special' make of this? They would say that Peter Ramster and Gwen McDonald are liars and concocted the elaborate story. They would also say that the film crew that Ramster took with him along with the locals in England that Ramster filmed confirming the details must also have been in on the lie! For any of you that don't have this kind of pathetic mentality and want to read the full account of Gwen McDonald's past life recall and how Peter Ramster verified it along with other evidence Ramster found for reincarnation you can purchase Peter Ramster's book 'The Search for Lives Past' and his other book 'The Truth About Reincarnation' in PDF format from Peter Ramster’s website for $10 each (see: http://www.aramaiglobal.org/online-shop.html ).

Peter Ramster also found that many of the people he hypnotised remembered their existence in the afterlife between their lives on earth and many of the descriptions of the afterlife they gave bore a striking similarity to accounts given by people who have had near death experiences and those given by mediums channelling people from the other side. Some of these people remembered being in a kind of hospital or place of rest after having died traumatically and this is identical to what Seth says happens to people that die traumatically or in a confused, disturbed state and refuse to accept that they have died. What these people revealed also supports what Seth says about reincarnation being a way for us to evolve spiritually learning from each of our earthly lives until we have evolved enough so we no longer need to come back any more.

Peter Ramster found that the memory of all of our past lives remains in our unconscious accessible through hypnosis and that our past life experiences can continue to affect us in our current life either positively or negatively depending on how we lived our past lives. He found that we can build up 'karmic debts' if we behaved badly in a previous life and this debt may have to be paid in the current life. An example would be that if you owned slaves in an early previous life and mistreated them then in the next life you came back as a slave to learn what it was like to be a slave and be mistreated or if say you were racist and hated black people in one life then in the next life you came back as a black person and learnt to lose your racist attitudes and respect human beings irrespective of skin colour. You don't retain the memory of any of this in your conscious mind but it remains in your unconscious so that who you are now is at least partially a product of your past lives.

What does Seth say on this? In the book ‘Seth Speaks’ Seth says exactly the same thing as Ramster found by hypnotising people and seeing this pattern in their past lives. Seth gives similar examples of how one past life affects the next so that learning takes place. Seth says that we are creating the conditions for our next earthly life by the way we behave and the attitudes and values we form in this one. He says that if you want an idea of what your next earth life will be like examine your current life and how it has shaped your character for the better or for the worse. If you have learnt from this life in a positive way then you have helped to ensure a more satisfying next life or you may even be allowed to stay on the other side because your earthly schooling is finally complete. Many of you that read this will predictably say that it's all nonsense because it conflicts with your current narrow rigid worldview. If it is nonsense then the hundreds of people that Peter Ramster has hypnotised are all liars or engaging in fantasy while under hypnosis. Curiously many of the details of these 'fantasies' about how they have lived before when checked out by Ramster have been verified as accurate. How can that be? Ramster must be lying when he says he verified the details. Anything to maintain your comfortable rigid worldview!

Peter Ramster is not the only researcher by the way that has done this and confirmed that the past life recall was accurate. An American researcher Dr. Brian Weiss has also done exactly the same thing regressing over 4,000 people and listened to them describe having lived in the past and Weiss has checked out the details given by some of the people by travelling to the locations the people say they lived at and he has confirmed that the details given were accurate (see: http://www.oprah.com/oprahradio/Life-and-Death ). On the Oprah show I watched Weiss tell the story of how he travelled to a location in the Middle East to check out the story of a woman who under hypnosis described how she was a seller of goods at a market located along a trade route 200 years ago. When Weiss went there he found that there was nothing but barren desert at the location indicated by the woman and old maps he looked at did not show any market as having existed there but then he came across an old map that confirmed that a market had indeed existed at the location the woman had described and he found some locals that confirmed this. When Weiss asked the locals about women selling at such markets he was told that current cultural prohibitions meant that women are forbidden to do so but 200 years earlier at the time the woman said she lived women were allowed to be sellers at markets i.e. the details the woman gave under hypnosis about her past life checked out perfectly (see: http://www.youtube.com/results?sear...eytns,pt=-30,n=2,ui=lr..0.0...1ac..11.youtube. ).

You have agreed a large number of you, to ignore the existence of reincarnation. When you decide to accept this, then of course adequate proof for it will be found.

― Seth​

Click to expand...

In 2012 Australian Ben McMahon was involved in a horrific car crash and spent a week in a coma. When he woke from his coma to the amazement of his friends and relatives McMahon was able to speak fluent Chinese Mandarin. While he had studied Mandarin in school McMahon only knew basic words and was far from fluent in the language before his accident. In July 2013 U.S. Navy veteran Michael Boatwright awoke from a coma speaking fluent Swedish. In 2010, a 13-year-old Croatian girl awoke from a coma with fluency in German. How was this possible? A Neurosurgeon Dr. Pankaj Sah attempted to explain Ben McMahon being able to speak fluent Mandarin after his coma by hypothesising that the shock to McMahon's brain from the accident awoke the ‘Mandarin circuits’ in McMahon’s brain.

For Dr. Pankaj Sah’s explanation to be correct all languages would have to be already stored in our brains at birth and on receiving the right sort of shock to the brain a language becomes accessible to the conscious mind. To suggest that all languages are already stored in the human brain at birth is even more remarkable than reincarnation being the explanation. Languages are learned by growing up surrounded by people speaking the language. Reincarnation provides an explanation for why some people have been able to speak a new language after coming out of a coma with the language having been learned in a past life.

If Australian past life researcher Peter Ramster were to hypnotise McMahon I believe that he would recall having lived a past life in China. The shock to the brain as a result of his car accident and the subsequent coma resulted in the language that McMahon spoke in that past life in China to be accessible to McMahon in his current life in Australia.

What would the many sceptics on this forum make of this? You would dismiss the story as nonsense because it clashes with what you believe to be possible despite it supporting the validity of reincarnation as part of a process of spiritual evolution that all humans go through before graduating from the earth school.

Another example of this phenomena called Xenoglossy is when a person regressed under hypnosis remembers a past life and starts speaking the language that the person spoke in the past life despite the language being foreign to the person in the current life.

In the following YouTube link past life researcher Dr Brian Weiss recounts how a woman from Beijing China was hypnotised by him and remembered a past life lived in the mid-1800s in California. Under hypnosis the woman recalled an argument that she had with her husband in the past life in California so vividly that she began speaking English in an American accent despite knowing no English in her current life!

Because the woman spoke no English an interpreter was used to translate the hypnotist’s words into Chinese and the woman’s responses back into English so the hypnotist and the woman could understand each other. When the woman started speaking English in an American accent the interpreter not realising what was happening automatically began translating her American English back into Chinese and the hypnotist held up his hand and gestured for him to stop. The interpreter then realised what was occurring and a look of absolute shock came over his face!

What would those of you on the forum who refuse to believe in an afterlife and reincarnation say to this? The hypnotist must be lying and have made up the story or maybe the woman knew how to speak English and pretended that she didn’t and the whole thing was a charade by the woman. Anything to preserve your rigid world views and belief system that such things are impossible!

This evidence for reincarnation comes from many different totally unrelated sources; Seth speaking through Jane Roberts, researchers like Ramster and Weiss, thousands of people that have been regressed under hypnosis and recalled past lives (with many of the recalled past lives checked by the researchers going to the locations and the details confirmed) and young children who spontaneously remember past lives without needing to be hypnotised. What will the know-all sceptics on overclockers with narrow rigid worldviews (of which there are many on the overclockers forum) think about this? The predictable response will be that the people recalling past lives (including young children) are liars seeking attention and the researchers investigating them are con artists motivated by money. They have to be liars and con artists otherwise how else can you preserve your comfortable, narrow, rigid view of reality despite the growing body of evidence to the contrary that's out there if you look for it and check it out. Peter Ramster in one of his books tells the story of a priest who came to him and accused him of being a charlatan and challenged Ramster to hypnotise him betting him that he wouldn’t recall any past lives. When Ramster hypnotised the priest he recalled several past lives with the last being one in which he froze to death and on coming out of hypnosis after vividly recalling freezing in his last past life the priest spent 30 minutes shivering violently in front of a heater trying to feel warm despite the room being warm. The priest left shaken after this experience forced him to reconsider his beliefs and the teachings of his religion!

More confirmation that what Seth claims is true comes from the medium Leslie Flint (http://www.leslieflint.com/) who I believe was genuine (I have some reservations however which I will clarify). Over a period of many years Flint channelled numerous people from the afterlife who spoke in their original voices supposedly through a 'voice box' created out of a substance called ectoplasm during séances that Flint held. I have reservations about some of the voices I've heard which aren't identical to the original person speaking while others appear to be genuine. One particular voice came through often when Flint channelled people from the other side. That voice has an upper class British accent (similar to the accent of Prince Charles) and this was either the same person speaking from the afterlife on behalf of the person claimed to be coming through or Flint was a 'mixed' medium i.e. genuine at times but who faked voices at other times so his audience wasn't disappointed.

Flint was reputedly tested many times by researchers and sceptics and none were able to show that he was not genuine. I’ve read no accounts of the way that he was tested to verify that the tests were rigorous and couldn’t have been circumvented by Flint. At least one photo of Flint exists with the voice box clearly sitting on Flint's shoulder (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Flint ). Playing devil's advocate if you look at the photo in the link the supposed voice box could be nothing more than cheesecloth pulled out of his collar. If it was cheesecloth then Flint wouldn't be the first medium that allowed himself to be corrupted by a hunger for significance into embellishing his reputation through resorting to trickery. If Flint was a phoney I don't see how he could have faked the voices of women that came through. Given how tested he was and how long Flint was around without ever having been exposed as a fraud I'm at least willing to believe that at worst he was a mixed medium who may have occasionally resorted to trickery when real phenomena failed to occur in order to not disappoint his audience.

Many recordings of people speaking directly from the afterlife through Leslie Flint are freely available (see: http://adcguides.com/theafterlife.htm) and one of these is of a Roman woman singing in Latin (see: http://adcguides.com/romansinging.htm) and Flint's guide on the other side (the guy with the upper class British accent I referred to earlier) describes how the people there are discussing a primitive God they believed in and worshipped all of those years ago in Roman times. On hearing the recording I was perplexed because the people in it had clearly not changed since Roman times as if they were living in a time warp; either that or Flint had tuned into a piece of the distant past which seemed impossible but after reading the Seth material on the nature of time I realised that Flint may actually have done just that.

One of the Flint recordings by the way is of a husband speaking to his deceased wife on multiple occasions at a series of séances he attended conducted by Leslie Flint (see: http://www.leslieflint.com/annie-nanji-1-10). You can see from the link that the man spoke to his deceased wife at length more than enough times to work out whether it really was her! Interestingly the voice that comes through is initially little more than a hoarse whisper that doesn't sound like a woman but over succeeding sessions the voice gradually becomes that of a female. This suggests that the woman gained more confidence each time she came through while speaking through Flint until she mastered speaking in the voice she had when she lived on earth as the wife of the man you can hear her talking with in each of the sessions.

An example of something I came across that helped me to verify what Seth said about time not being what we think it is and being able to be manipulated by us in the afterlife for learning purposes is a statement made by someone supposedly speaking from the afterlife in an electronic voice projection recording you can listen to in the DVD 'The Afterlife Investigations' which is well worth buying and watching (http://www.theafterlifeinvestigations.com/) in which a person speaking directly from the afterlife says 'we are the keepers of the time series'. When I heard this it made no sense to me and my initial reaction was why didn't one of the persons that was present respond by saying, 'is there anyone else over there that I can speak to that doesn't talk meaningless gibberish and can remember what it was like to be human?' but after reading the Seth material about the true nature of time the statement 'we are the keepers of the time series' made sense and supported the validity of what Seth said about the nature of time and the way it can be viewed and manipulated in the afterlife.

The DVD 'The Afterlife Investigations' by the way principally covers the so called 'Scole Experiment' in which all sorts of phenomena appearing to originate from the afterlife were observed in a tiny dark basement in a house in Scole England. One of the people that attended some of the sessions and investigated the phenomena was a reputable and respected scientist, Rupert Sheldrake, who describes in the DVD 'The Afterlife Investigations' some of the phenomena he observed that he couldn't explain (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frJpThIims8). Sheldrake is a researcher in psychic phenomena as well as being a trained scientist and he is one of several scientists that you can see speaking in the DVD 'The Afterlife Investigations' that attended some of the Scole sessions and observed the phenomena and all of those scientists without exception were at a loss to explain what they observed.

In the video documentary ‘The Afterlife Investigations’ Sheldrake describes how during one of the Scole Experiment sessions that he and several other scientists attended they were asked to pick up a crystal ball that had a vivid light shining from the centre of it which Sheldrake couldn’t determine the source of. Each scientist picked up the crystal ball in turn and put it back down. Each scientist was then asked to pick up the crystal ball again and when they tried they couldn't because their hands went through the crystal ball! The crystal ball remained visible through all of this by the way so there was no chance for it to have been taken away by anyone in the room and substituted by some sort of holographic image.

The scientists were amazed when this happened but the people from the afterlife explained that they had done this to demonstrate the true nature of death. They said that they had removed the physical atoms of the crystal ball but left its ‘spirit’ behind and that this is analogous to what happens at death i.e. the physical body dies away but the spirit (a facsimile of the physical body composed of energy which is our true essence) remains and lives on just as happened with the crystal ball. You can see Sheldrake describing this in the documentary ‘The Afterlife Investigations’. Sheldrake being a member of the Society for Psychical Research was used to debunking fraudulent mediums but he had never come across something like this before!

As well as Rupert Sheldrake who you see talking about this in the documentary 'The Afterlife Investigations' another scientist that confirmed the account of the crystal ball was Professor Arthur Ellison referred to below in a promo for the documentary:

...the wonderful documentary by Tim Coleman you briefly see a scene where Professor Arthur Ellison (pictured left) was asked to reach out and touch a solid crystal. Then when he tried to touch it again his hand went straight through it. All of the scientists who actually took part in the investigation were convinced they were dealing with the afterlife.

Click to expand...

The sceptics among you will dismiss this story as lies on Sheldrake's and Ellison's part because it conflicts with your narrow worldview yet they belong to an organisation that has exposed many frauds so why Sheldrake and the other scientists that attended would suddenly start lying makes no sense. The other possibility is that it was a trick yet Sheldrake makes it clear that there was no opportunity for the crystal ball to be removed and substituted by some sort of holographic image because all eyes in the room remained on the crystal ball at all times as the scientists picked it up and when they tried a second time and couldn't pick it up because their hands went through it.

Another thing that Sheldrake witnessed that he describes in the documentary ‘The Afterlife Investigations’ was a number of lights moving around the room in the dark. At first he thought they might have been LEDs on the end of a string or rod but then one of them passed into his body and he could feel it moving around inside his body! This happened to a number of other scientists as well.

Quoting from a trailer for the documentary 'The Afterlife Investigations' more is revealed about the lights seen during the Scole sessions:

One of the most spectacular phenomena of the Scole Experiment was the materialised psychic lights that whirled around the room performing various manoeuvres. Occasionally, these lights would throw out beams, as well as pass through solid objects. When they touched people, there was a definite sensation, and when they entered a person's body a healing.

The speed and the different configurations and other phenomena performed behind the lights were just overwhelming especially when all witnesses attested it was impossible that the lights could have been in any way fraudulently physically manipulated. All of these phenomena were accompanied by sudden and dramatic drops in temperature.

This is how Piers Eggett, one of the eye witnesses described the light:

This was a small ball of white light which moved around the room in all directions, sometimes at great speed, leaving a trail like a firework by persistence of vision... At times the light hovered in mid-air, and then touched some of the sitters, giving them a small electric shock.

According to other eye witnesses the normally single light point would:

• dart around at great speed and perform elaborately patterned dances...including perfect, sustained circles executed at high velocity and with a precision which appeared inconsistent with physical manipulation

• settle on outstretched hands and jump from one to the other

• enter a crystal and remain as a small point of light moving around within the crystal

• strike the top of the table with a sharp rap or the glass of the dome or dish with an appropriate ‘ping’ and do this repeatedly while remaining visible as a sharp pinpoint of light

• respond to requests, such as alighting on and irradiating parts of the witnesses' bodies

• move in time to tape-recorded music

• produce 'lightning flashes' in an area of a large room some three to three and a half meters distant from the group sitting round a table (in Spain)

• undertake several aerial 'bombing raids' on the table top, hitting it very audibly and visibly, and appearing to emerge from an area immediately below the table (USA Los Angeles)

• change shape from a pinpoint of light to a generalized irradiation

• move at very high speed describing at times perfect geometric shapes within a foot or two of visitors' faces, but without making any sound or creating any perceptible air movement.

A master magician’s testimony
Skeptics may argue that such effects could be produced by stage magicians using long hollow strands of fibreglass with laser lights projected through them. This option was certainly considered by James Webster, a professional stage-magician and former member of the Magic Circle, who has more than fifty years experience in psychic research. On three occasions he attended sittings with the Scole group and published reports. His conclusion was clearly set out in a recent letter to the English newspaper, Psychic World (June 2001):

I discovered no signs of trickery, and in my opinion such conjuring tricks were not possible, for the type of phenomena witnessed, under the conditions applied….

Click to expand...

Another example of phenomena observed at Scole that comes to mind is 'apports' or objects that apparently materialised from thin air during many of the Scole sessions. One of these was a copy of a newspaper from many years ago that was analysed and found to be authentic. The paper used in those days was different to the type used today and the analysis showed that it was the correct type of paper for the date of the paper. The paper was in pristine condition as if it had been created by the spirit beings from the other side but it yellowed unusually quickly.

More than fifty small objects were materialized including: a silver necklace; a Churchill coin; a small rose quartz crystal ball; a 1940 British penny; a 1928 one franc piece token; a Silver charm of the 'Grim Reaper'; an original copy of Daily Mail dated 1st April 1944; an original copy of Daily Express dated 28th May 1945 and many others.

Click to expand...

Time and again amazing phenomena were witnessed such as the scientists bringing rolls of film sealed by them and kept in a locked box through the session and then when they had the film developed it had an amazing array of images on it many of them images of things from the past including signatures of people, obscure poems, photos of buildings that no longer existed etc etc. You can see actual footage of some of the images discovered on the rolls of film by watching the documentary 'The Afterlife Investigations' which you should be able to see in the link I provided.

Again quoting from a promo of the documentary 'The Afterlife Investigations':

Images imprinted on film and video
Interesting experiments were undertaken with photography. Images were imprinted on unopened rolls of film inside a locked box. These images included actual photos of people and places, sometimes from the past, and various obscure verses and drawings that took some effort to identify. There were also pictures of other dimensions and the beings that inhabit them. Eventually video cameras were able to record disincarnate images.

Click to expand...

Scientists from the Society for Psychical research attended over 20 sessions of the Scole Experiment and witnessed many such phenomena which they couldn't explain. The scientists described what they witnessed during the Scole Experiment as 'bundle of sticks' evidence. When presented with a single stick it's easy to break the stick but when presented with a thick bundle of sticks it becomes impossible to break the bundle. The evidence witnessed for intelligent beings in another dimension communicating with those present in the room was so prolific and strong that the scientists likened it to a ‘bundle of sticks’ that couldn't be broken i.e. the scientists couldn't refute it.

The Scole Experiment provides some of the strongest evidence yet for the existence of an afterlife or at least that other dimensions exist with intelligent beings living in them with contact possible between the dimensions under the right conditions.

If you don't want to buy the DVD (I bought it and it was worth paying for) you can watch parts of the documentary 'The Afterlife Investigations' on YouTube (by the look of it you can watch the entire documentary for free) as well as listening to some of the scientists that attended some of the Scole Experiment sessions discussing what they experienced, in the link below.

The chief organiser of the Scole Experiment Robin Foy kept a diary as it occurred and he wrote a book about it called 'Witnessing the Impossible'. It describes in detail every one of the hundreds of sessions of the Scole Experiment many of which were attended by visitors. The cynics among you would claim that Robin Foy wrote the book to enrich himself and that the Scole Experiment was a hoax done for money yet as far as I know no-one was charged for attending the sessions and the book 'Witnessing the Impossible' that Robin Foy wrote was a thick high quality hardcover book that cost me so little that the proceeds would have barely covered the cost of printing it. If the Scole Experiment was a hoax it wasn't done for money. There have been critics of the Scole Experiment but when challenged to replicate the phenomena (there are far too many for me to describe) that were witnessed by many including scientists no-one has been able to do so.

For me one of the most interesting parts of the book that Robin Foy wrote about the Scole Experiment was an account of a question and answer session with the spirit communicators from the other side. This is quoted below. What was communicated during this question and answer session is in accord with what Seth says as well as other accounts given by mediums channelling spirit communicators from the afterlife.

Quote from Robin Foy's book 'Witnessing the Impossible' about the Scole Experiment (pages 200 to 203):

The Ibiza Questions posed by Dr Hans Schaer - Monday 23rd October 1995
As I have already mentioned, Dr. Hans Schaer was given the opportunity by the spirit team to ask a number of general questions he had prepared about various aspects of life in the spirit world. In respect of all the searching questions that were asked, the spirit team made a point of responding as fully as they were able (as was their normal practice), and they did their best to add to the understanding we all had of man's survival after passing into the spirit world. I think that readers will be very interested in these questions and answers. Consequently I will reproduce them here in their original format, as follows:-

Question: "What happens when we pass over into the spirit world? Are we met by our loved ones? Are there houses or anything comparable to our own here on earth?"

Answer: "Generally speaking, most people have an actual moment of adjustment; a moment of confusion. Am I here, or there? What has happened to me? As this moment comes, you find yourself in familiar or comfortable surroundings. This is the area of adjustment that you can live in for many, many earth years. Time is not a reality, so there is no hurry!"

"This is a very real world to those who dwell in it. There are flowers and fields, etc. We are not able to do it justice in mere language. This is an area that is often described by spirit people when communicating through a medium. After passing, you are comforted by your loved ones - if you wish - and you will feel very comfortable in a world of beauty".

"Those you love may feel very happy with this existence but perhaps if, for example, you pass over with a greater spiritual understanding, then it may be possible to help them and together, you may explore other areas of existence and go forward. It depends a lot on your needs: the life you have led and your spiritual self.

Question: "Is it possible to meet others who are on a higher level?"

Answer: "Yes, it is possible. Often you find yourselves in the presence of a teacher. There are many gatherings around great teachers. You may be guided to such an area - and there you absorb knowledge (rather than listen) just by being in their presence".

Question: "Do some spirit beings tell or instruct others what to do in the spirit world?"

Answer: "No - but you can be guided and advised".

Question: "Do each of us have a specific purpose in being here? Do we have to fulfil a task or duty?"

Answer: "Not exactly. You have to come to earth for the experience. There are a few exceptions that do come to fulfil a particular task, but most people come for the experience to gain spiritually from the life. When you have a pattern repeat in your life and you say to yourself 'Oh no! Not again!', then you must look at what is happening and seek out what the lesson of that pattern is. When people begin a spiritual quest and have a spiritual awakening, then they slowly observe that they are evolving as a person; their normal and daily thinking patterns are changing as they follow their spiritual pathway".

"Sadly, the majority of mankind are not progressing well spiritually. They are not very aware. But certain energies are coming to the earth which will help to change that. Those that are aware will be of great service in helping that energy to be used for the greater good of mankind. When man does become aware spiritually, then he will realise that there is more to his life on earth than meets the eye!"

Question: "Is there a negative side that fights this very positive energy?"

Answer: "No. It is man in his ignorance that causes problems. If man lives his life without aspiring to a spiritual awareness, he lives in ignorance. Ignorance breeds negativity, and negative thoughts create a negative force; just as, in a similar way, positive thinking creates a positive force. So we do have to work on the negative forces. Not however, those outside of man, but those within man".

"If everyone could love each other in a truly spiritual way, the amount of positive energy which was generated would be quite tremendous. Positive energies are coming to the world at this time and we wish to explain to people the part that they themselves have to play as individuals; always trying to use their own energies in a positive way and indeed thinking in a positive way. Then this positivity will grow and spread".

Answer: "Yes. These negative energies are created by man. There is a dark side, but this is actually due to the thought patterns of man. Man has free will to make a choice; it is man's own decision to wage war, for instance. Such a thing comes about through man's intolerance, etc."

Question: "What are spirit people doing with their time? Do they have specific tasks and duties to perform?"

Answer: "Yes, we all have something to do. Don't fall into the trap of thinking we have a great deal of time on our hands. Important and difficult as it is to grasp, time does not exist here - as you know it. Everyone here does something, but not in a physical sense. You cannot - literally - work".

"It is more of a mental world than a physical one. But how you conduct yourself on our side is more real than earth life - not dreamlike or vague! More real in fact, than you can imagine!"

Question: "Can you play music?"

Answer: "Yes. But not in the same way as in your physical world, with the mental turmoil and continual practice. In just an instant, you can express yourself in music with such joy and depth". "You can also work together with others. Someone may say, 'Try it this way', and you then find it is very much easier than you thought. There is no limitation on the music, such as you have in a physical world. You have a total freedom to express your true self in music".

Question: "Do the Akashic Records exist in fact, and can we have access to them?"

Answer: "We are not in possession of all the facts, but we do know that they exist. However, not in the way that many see them in their mind's eye. It is true to say that much information is stored in other realms and spheres. But again - perhaps not as much as you are led to believe. Some of the records are accessible to higher beings. There are also some on earth who claim to have access to them, but I do not know if this is true".

Question: "Are you given a chance to develop yourself more spiritually when you pass into the spirit world?"

Answer: "Yes, though 'chance' is the wrong term. The overall aim is for every soul to obtain spiritual knowledge and to move towards the light itself. There are several ways you can choose that will give you great assistance in achieving this aim".

"Remember that even now, you are also a spirit that just happens at this time to be temporarily housed in a physical body. It is therefore important that whilst you are in fact, having a life in that physical body, you properly use the experience of it to grow spiritually".

Question: "We hear that you have to lower your natural vibratory state in order for you to get in touch with us. Is it possible for us, on the other hand (and so that we can achieve the same result), to raise ours accordingly?"

Answer: "It is. In so doing, there is a need for people's consciousness to rise up and expand. Certain conditions which can occur during the sleep state make this possible, but it requires some training and lots of discipline. There are also columns of energy in the world that reach from the earth right into the spiritual realms. They can assist your personal consciousness to communicate with our world".

"Even so, nevertheless, certain conditions must be met. There is a need for meditation; a stillness of mind. Then it is possible to transcend the boundaries between the spirit realms and higher levels - though the actual word 'levels' is incorrect. 'Areas of Existence' is nearer to the truth, although words cannot really express these things".

"Being in spirit is your natural state, so that when you come to spirit, it is like coming home. This is our understanding, but 'LOVE' is the special word that makes everything happen!"

We all have much to learn from question and answer sessions such as these, which allow us to build a basic framework within our minds as to the conditions and true realities within the spirit world to which we must all (one day) go. As one eminent spirit communicator once told us; "If you were about to emigrate to a foreign country and you had no choice in the matter, it is only natural that before you made the journey, you would want to find out and discover as much as possible about the natives, the customs', the language and the geography of the place. How much more appropriate therefore, that you all make the effort to discover as much as you possibly can about the one place (the spirit world) in which you will one day reside". Genuine psychic research of any kind is therefore a valuable tool to achieve this important aim.

― 'Witnessing the Impossible' by Robin Foy (pages 200 to 203) ​

Click to expand...

In the above question and answer session the spirit communicator that answered indicated that after death while we go to a beautiful facsimile of earth (which has none of the negatives of the physical earth) it's only a temporary place for rest and recovery and not our final destination. This is the same place that Peter Ramster found many of the people he hypnotised described as being where they lived between earth lives and the same place that people that have had near death experiences describe as being shown before having to come back to finish their earth lives. Notice that the spirit communicator says that 'this is a very real world to those that dwell in it'. This suggests that it only seems real to those who accept it and go with it. Seth confirms this by saying that this beautiful facsimile of earth only seems real if you accept it at face value. If you have enough awareness to realise that it’s an illusion I’m guessing that you may find yourself in another area in line with your awareness level. If I find myself in this beautiful facsimile of earth I’m going to say to myself that it’s a wonderful illusion but I’m more interested in reality and see what happens!

After spending enough time to reflect on the lessons of our last earth incarnation and recover in this idyllic place there are two possibilities. The first is the one that most people are presented with namely to return to earth in a new body for further learning i.e. reincarnate (a possibility I find somewhat depressing). This involves returning to conditions conducive to learning lessons that still need to be learnt e.g. we may agree to come back as the opposite sex to the last time or to return to a set of conditions that provides the opportunity develop a part of our character that needs development. The second possibility is only presented to people who have spiritually evolved sufficiently that they do not need to return to earth. These people continue learning and evolving in other dimensions. One should not assume that this means an idyllic life in some other dimension devoid of difficulties and challenges. Learning and evolving appears to be never ending and this implies facing difficulties and challenges no matter what dimension we find ourselves in (this principle apparently applies even to God whom Seth refers to as All That Is, as you'll see at the end of my post!).

Like the spirit communicator in the above question and answer session Seth in the book ‘Seth Speaks’ also says that the place we live in between earth lives is constructed for us so that we have familiar surroundings after death and a place for rest and reflection before the next earth incarnation. While the spirit communicator makes no mention of it, it also appears to be the case that those of us that have lived selfish non-spiritual lives go to a less idyllic place where conditions reflect a lower degree of spiritual evolution. This is the law of karma or reaping what you sow and this not so nice place (which can be hellish in the case of people that have lived very non-spiritual extremely selfish lives) is also temporary.

Seth even says that there are advantages from being in a hellish place because you cry out for help relatively quickly and then help to work your way out of the conditions is forthcoming from those higher up. You then agree to go back to earth to conditions that provide the opportunities needed to learn and grow so that you can look forward to nicer conditions in the future as you grow spiritually. Rather than viewing this as a moral value system based on reward and punishment it's more accurate to say that it is based on natural law. Like naturally gravitates towards like in the afterlife and the conditions of people living together reflect the level of spiritual evolution (or consciousness) of those living in community. Time and again Seth says that consciousness creates the conditions not the other way round so it follows that when the general level consciousness of those living together is low the resulting conditions will be less than ideal (even hellish).

The spirit communicator also clears up something I've long wandered about namely whether we come here to learn something specific and pass a specific test or just for the general experience and to learn as much as we can. It's clear from the answer that in the vast majority of cases we come here to learn and grow spiritually rather than to fulfil some specific task or goal. Seth however says that we agree (reluctantly but in the end we agree) to return to conditions that may help us learn to overcome a character flaw e.g. if we looked down on handicapped people in the last earth life we might come back with a significant handicap to lose the feeling of superiority and feel empathy towards others with handicaps. Peter Ramster also found this pattern in many of the people he hypnotised that recalled a series of past lives with conditions in each succeeding life being conducive to correcting a character flaw revealed by an earlier life. It follows here that we can speed up this process of spiritual evolution or impede it by how we conduct our earth lives and presumably influence how many times we a are required to reincarnate.

One question that remains unanswered is how it's determined when we have learned enough to not have to come back to earth. Is the level of spiritual growth that we are required to reach before we don't have to reincarnate the same for everyone or is it different for every person because people have different abilities and potentials for spiritual growth? It's also unclear as to who makes the decision as to whether we can stay and move on to explore other dimensions or whether we must return to earth for further learning. My readings indicate that the level of spiritual evolution and the true character of each person in the afterlife is visible to all through a unique aura that every person has and it's possible that this may be used to determine whether one needs to return to earth for further learning or is ready to move on to other dimensions. It's possible that this decision is made by a council of more evolved beings. One account I read suggested that each of us belongs to a wider spiritual group or family (which may have no connection to our earth family) and that the group cannot move on to a higher level until all members of the group have reached a similar level of spiritual maturity.

Edit: I wrote the above a long time ago. Since then further reading of the Seth material channelled through medium Jane Roberts has helped me to understand when we no longer need to reincarnate. Based on what Seth reveals we don’t need to come back to an earth life when we consciously recognise and are familiar with our ‘inner self’.

The inner information must be consciously recognized. In your terms, by the time an individual is in his last physical life, all portions of the personality are then familiar with it at the time of death. The personality is not swept willy-nilly back to another earthly existence, as might be the case otherwise.

― Seth Speaks The eternal Validity of the Soul​

Click to expand...

It's clear from the question and answer session that the spirit communicator that provided the answers was not speaking from the idyllic place of earth like conditions that is a resting place between earth lives for most of us. The spirit communicator had presumably graduated from having to come back to the earth school and was speaking from a higher dimension beyond the one we go to between earth lives.

You can listen to Robin Foy the main organiser of the Scole Experiment interviewed on radio answering questions and explaining why it had to be abruptly ended by going to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ and doing a search for 'Robin Foy' or clicking on one of the links below (the second link is when the interview was replayed a couple of months later by popular demand).

A person with a great deal of experience in investigating evidence for the afterlife and the authenticity of mediums (there are a fair number of frauds as you would expect) that I have found to be very helpful and informative is George Cranley who uses the name Zerdini and has his own website (see: http://zerdinisworld.com/). Cranley discusses his 40 years of experience of investigating the existence of an afterlife in a radio interview at his website that is well worth listening to (see the next link for this). Some of the experiences Cranley claims to have had will amaze those of you that aren't closed minded and rigidly sceptical.

Cranley's website is a treasure trove of material that he has gathered over his lifetime much of it from personal experience. In the radio interview Cranley says that the evidence for the existence for an afterlife is out there and strong but it won't come to you and you have to be prepared to do some looking. He's right and I've looked and the evidence coming from many different sources is indeed strong. It's unlikely however that it will ever become mainstream because it requires intelligence to decipher it so the dumb, sneering cynics among you (of which there are many on overclockers) that require absolute, irrefutable proof presented to you without effort will only receive this when you die and discover that it is true.

You can listen to George Cranley being interviewed in the following link below. After going to the web page below click on 'Zerdinis interview on Sovereign Radio'. It's well worth listening to Cranley speaking from his 40 years of experience in investigating evidence for the afterlife. Cranley says things in the interview about experiences that he has had during his 40 years of investigating the afterlife that will amaze those of you that aren't totally closed minded.

I myself have had one personal experience of attending a séance in Sydney two years ago run by two men ( see: http://montcabirol.com/ ) and I was sceptical but something happened at the séance I attended that forced me to conclude that it was genuine. From the séance I attended I learned that you don't change on the other side and suddenly become all knowing and wise. Based on the 3 spirit personalities that came through at the séance I concluded that knowledge and wisdom has to be worked for both here and on the other side.

Two of the 'spirit' people that came through at the séance I attended were ordinary people. One was a woman named Irene who was easily led by members of the audience asking her questions and the other was a man called Phil who when he lived on earth was a homosexual and he demonstrated that God doesn't damn gay people to hell. John Sloan the main spirit person that came through was himself a medium when he lived on earth from 1869 to 1951 and he never charged for any séances he conducted. He came across as intelligent, wise and with a strong caring personality and it was he that did something right at the end of the séance I attended that purely by accident led me to conclude that I was listening to someone speaking from the afterlife dimension and that the séance was genuine and the men running it were not frauds.

I only came to this conclusion after going over every detail of what I experienced that night numerous times in my mind before concluding that it was genuine. A detailed explanation of the reasons why I came to the conclusion that the séance was genuine can be found later in this post. The amount of money ($85) that the men conducting the series of séances charged per person by the way would barely have covered their air fares from France and accommodation costs so they were clearly not conducting the séances for money.

You can download audio of the séances conducted by these two men in Australia and other countries from their website ( http://montcabirol.com/ ). The audio includes John Sloan and a couple of other people speaking from the afterlife at each of the séances through the medium that goes into a trance state allowing the person from the afterlife to take over his body and speak through him. You can also hear people that attended the séance asking John Sloan and the other two people that came through questions.

Another very useful link is a forum where you are allowed to discuss the afterlife and freely voice your opinion if you think a medium is a phony without fear of being ostracised (see: http://www.spiritualismlink.com/). Such a forum provides an invaluable service because you are able to read criticisms of mediums voiced by people who have legitimate questions and who may not be allowed to voice their criticisms at other forums where anyone daring to question the authenticity of a medium is likely to find his/her post deleted or find themselves banned. At the forum numerous mediums from the past that were found to be fraudulent are mentioned along with some prominent mediums that are currently practising whose mediumship is doubtful at best.

Telling the frauds (the closed minded sceptics with rigid world views among you would say they are all frauds but I disagree with this) from the genuine ones isn't easy because most séances are conducted in the dark providing the ideal conditions for perpetrating fraud with little chance of being found out unless you slip up (a couple of well-known current mediums including an Australian one have slipped up on occasions and these slip-ups are revealed at the forum I referred to in the previous link). Added to this is the fact that many genuine mediums resorted to trickery on occasions so as not to disappoint their audience particularly if they charged money. One example of these is Helen Duncan who was caught using trickery earlier in her career as a medium but was also (in my opinion and that of many others) genuine on occasions and wound up being jailed by the British government during World War 2 under an ancient law against practising witchcraft because she revealed during a séance that a British ship had been sunk when the information had been kept secret by the government (see: http://zerdinisworld.com/?p=122 ).

Leslie Flint was I believe genuine most of time but not necessarily all the time. As I mentioned earlier I have reservations about him because not all of the voices that came through were the same as the original person. One example of this is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who Flint channelled yet when you compare Flint's version to the real Arthur Conan Doyle speaking on YouTube they are clearly not the same person. Other voices that Flint channelled (including those of women) were however identical to recordings of the original person taken when the person was alive. Flint was tested many times by researchers, scientists etc trying to determine if he was a fraud and he passed every test (see: http://www.leslieflint.com/ ).

Postscript:The above views on Leslie Flint were written years ago when I was just beginning to seriously investigate evidence for the afterlife and I was much more naïve than I am now in relation to things like fraudulent mediums and dubious evidence for an afterlife. At the time I wrote the above I innocently bought into the hype about Flint’s mediumship and I didn’t understand how the mechanism of confirmation bias worked. As I became better at distinguishing between sound evidence and dubious evidence my views on Leslie Flint changed. While it’s true that Flint was tested a number of times as far as I know he wasn’t tested by any reputable organisation in a way that proved that he was genuine. My current views on Flint which are expressed later in this post differ markedly to the views above although even above it is apparent that I had some doubts about his mediumship. Unlike many people my views are fluid and subject to change as new information becomes available and I become better at distinguishing between what's true and what's false.

I'm sure many other mediums were genuine as well. I regard the two people ( see: http://montcabirol.com/ ) for example that ran the one and only séance that I have personally attended that I referred to earlier as genuine and another current medium Kai Muegge ( see: http://felixcircle.blogspot.de/ ) also looks to be genuine. Kai Muegge is one of the few mediums that conducts séances in red light so you can see evidence of phenomena supposedly coming from the afterlife with your own eyes. Muegge came to Australia last year and will be back towards the end of 2013. If I get a chance to see him in Sydney I'll go although it will be more out of curiosity than for proof of an afterlife.

Again a forum where scepticism is not frowned on and alternate viewpoints can be freely discussed and where you can read about some of the fraudulent mediums that have been exposed can be found at:

Another forum that is very useful is one established by Robin Foy who ran the Scole Experiment which was investigated by scientists from the society for psychical research and based on their findings I believe was genuine. It is in the link below. I have posted once on Robin Foy's forum about my experience attending my one and only séance. I doubt I'll ever attend another séance but I don't need to because my own investigations have convinced me that there is an afterlife. Am I 100% convinced there's an afterlife? No because it's such a fantastic concept that I'll fully believe it when I experience it but I'm 99% convinced. The small amount of doubt I have will be erased when I die and find (as I expect to) that there is one!

Are there contradictions between what different sources say about the afterlife? Yes there are but they are minor and Seth explains why these contradictions occur. It's because we don't all go to the same place in the afterlife (like lives with like in the afterlife) and people from the other side that come through mediums can only describe how things appear from their viewpoint. I've come across numerous instances in my readings of claims being made about the afterlife from different sources which support some of what Seth says despite being unconnected to the Seth material. If for example you read the descriptions of the afterlife given in the links (http://adcguides.com/theafterlife.htm and http://www.afterlifedata.com/) and read the Seth material you'll also find that there is a lot of similarity between what is said despite coming from totally different sources so either you have the same lies being concocted and repeated coming from different sources at different times or the same things are said because they are true.

A recent example of a near death experience that supports the existence of an afterlife and the Seth material comes from the just released book 'Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife' by Eben Alexander MD available as an e-book or in paperback from places like Amazon. Alexander is a neurosurgeon that 3 years ago became very ill with bacterial meningitis and lay in a coma for a week. While very close to death he found himself lifted out of his body and going through a portal and being enveloped by a light and then meeting a woman who showed him other dimensions that await us after we are done with our reincarnational lives as humans. Alexander didn't know who this mysterious woman was but after he recovered he realised that she was his sister; the sister he only found out that he had after he recovered! Alexander was shown that there are many other dimensions far more wondrous than ours and that there are beings inhabiting these dimensions. He was also shown that there is evil in each of these dimensions just as there is in ours and that the purpose of this is so that we have free will but the amount of good in each dimension far outweighs the evil and all of us are loved and supported unconditionally by a God that understands what it is like to be human.

What Alexander describes about the existence of other dimensions awaiting us beyond this one is identical to what Seth says time and again in the Seth material. Nonsense you say? Being a neurosurgeon Alexander by definition must be a highly intelligent rational man with rigorous scientific and medical training and with no reason to make up a story like this for financial gain. It must have been a hallucination you say? Curiously a great many others (millions of people including children have had near death experiences) have had similar 'hallucinations' (the fact that the hallucinations just happen to be coherent and all similar must be a co-incidence or maybe they are all liars including young children that tell the same 'lies' as the adults!) all indicating that we have a soul that survives our bodily death and that there is something beyond this earthly existence awaiting us whether you believe it or not.

In his book by the way Alexander goes into all of the alternate rational possible explanations for what he experienced that he could think of and shows why none of them could be true and in doing so he proves that he lost none of his neurosurgeon's high intelligence from being clinically dead for some time. The sneering dumb cynics among you with narrow worldviews to protect would say that Alexander is a liar and wrote his book for money or attention but Alexander is a neurosurgeon with a lucrative practice so why would he lie about such a thing along with so many other people that have had similar experiences? The answer is that it's the only explanation that the sneering, cynical, unintelligent and insecure members of overclockers who refuse to entertain the possibility of it being true can come up with to preserve their narrow worldview.

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.

― Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)​

Click to expand...

You can download a copy of the book 'Seth Speaks' from the following link:

Other books by Seth channelled through Jane Roberts that I have also found to be well worth reading for personal spiritual growth are 'The Nature of the Psyche' and 'The Nature of Personal Reality'. You may be able to download these in PDF form for free (I got them for free from somewhere but I can't remember where) or they can be purchased as e-books.

If you do a search there are numerous websites that give an overall impression of the sort of things revealed by Seth. Call it bullshit if you like but much of what Seth says correlates with what has come from other unrelated sources both before and after Seth and some scientists have stated that what Seth says is compatible with quantum physics. I myself question some of the less important details of the Seth material that stretch the bounds of credulity e.g. Seth claimed that there was an advanced civilisation on earth called Lumania and that these advanced beings co-existed with early humans and lived underground and some of the claims Seth makes about the powers these beings had and what happened to them is pretty way out even to me with my open mind. If the Seth material is bullshit then it was made up by a brilliant mind that was careful not to contradict itself while covering a huge volume of material much of it transcribed during trance sessions conducted weekly over many years in the presence of an audience.

Christians by the way have labelled Seth as demonic because Seth reveals that the Christ story as described in the bible wasn't accurate and that the Christ personality was a synthesis of several historical figures (John the Baptist and the apostle Paul were two of these figures and the other was a historical Christ who was never actually crucified) and was developed so that the world could have a system of morality (i.e. Christianity) which mankind needed to help it to evolve. This enrages Christians who insist that the Christ story is historically accurate and that the bible account of Jesus Christ doing all of the things described in the bible is literally true.

Have you ever wondered why Near Death Experience stories seem to vary according to the religious (or non-religious) beliefs of the person experiencing them so that a Christian meets Christ while a Jew doesn't and a Buddhist has another experience in line with his beliefs? This had troubled me for a long time because it indicated that when we die we are given a kind of feedback of our beliefs rather than straight out truth. Seth explains why this happens. Seth confirms that we are given a feedback of our beliefs and the reason for this is because the shock of dying and finding yourself in the afterlife is already a big enough adjustment to deal with (particularly if you died in traumatic circumstances) without also having all of your erroneous beliefs and illusions shattered at the same time. We are only shown as much as we are capable of dealing with and understanding at our stage of spiritual growth in line with the principle of spiritual evolution being a gradual process of learning at our own rate in our own way rather than having truth imposed on us. Like it or not we are required to work out our true nature rather than having this presented to us on a platter without any work on our part. Part of this process is attending this earth school and learning all we are capable of here through reincarnating however many times it takes before moving on to other dimensions for further spiritual evolution.

This means that a person that has lived his/her life believing in the bible version of Christ on arriving in the afterlife will see a realistic facsimile of Christ reflecting the person's expectations and beliefs. This realistic facsimile of Christ, Seth explains, is created by higher beings not for the purpose of deception but out of respect for the fact that dying and finding oneself still alive in another dimension is already more than enough of a shock to deal with without also having all of your erroneous beliefs shattered at the same time!

This is also the reason most of us (with some possible exceptions) arrive in an idyllic facsimile of earth between earth lives which has been created for us as a resting place. Both Seth and the spirit communicator that came through at the Scole Experiment question and answer session quoted earlier confirm that while this place seems real it is actually artificially constructed for us (by more evolved beings) so that we have a place with familiar surroundings for us to rest, recuperate and ponder the lessons learnt from the last earth incarnation before embarking on the next one (assuming that we have not yet completed the reincarnational cycle we agreed to).

Seth implies that we are more special than we ever dreamed and that the universe we live in is multi-dimensional and more mysterious than we could ever imagine and that our true nature is God-like. Seth says that we are basically 'Gods in training' (seen from our viewpoint) learning how to control and manipulate energy. According to Seth our souls are immortal and after we are done with learning all we can from our reincarnational existences as human beings we can look forward to evolving into ever higher and more complex beings in other dimensions equally as real and valid as this one. No-one however forces us to evolve and the rate at which we evolve is up to us but there are always teachers available to help us along the way. Those teachers themselves are evolving too with no ultimate end-point in sight but the obvious inference can be made that the evolution is towards being more and more like the source-God.

You are not a miniature self, an adjunct to some super being, never to share fully in its reality. In those terms you are that super self - looking out of only one eye, or using just one finger. Much of this is very difficult to verbalize. You are not subordinate to some giant consciousness. While you think in such terms, however, I must speak of reincarnational selves counterparts, because you are afraid that if you climb out of what you think your identity is, then you will lose it.

― Seth session 740​

Click to expand...

One of the objections that many on overclockers would bring up in response to this view and to what I have argued in this long post is that if there is a God and our true nature is so different to the view of Luke212 who wrote in the earlier post ‘when will humans realise we are not special!’ then why did this God not create us with all the knowledge necessary to understand our true nature and destiny? Why hide our specialness and give us the impression that we are just clever animals destined to experience a few short years on earth and then face oblivion?

One possible answer is provided by David Fontana (who was one of the scientists who observed the phenomena at the 'Scole Experiment' mentioned earlier and who could offer no conventional explanation for it) in his excellent book ‘Life Beyond Death’ (available as an e-book from Amazon) who I quote below:

The realms of form, particularly the earth plane, are said by all the great traditions to offer experiences from which we can learn progressively deeper and deeper lessons. Which raises again the question posed at the end of the last chapter, 'why should all this learning be necessary - why can't we be created perfect, with no lessons needed?' As before, the answer is that learning would seem to be part of the process of creation. We can see from nature that creation is not a once-and-for-all event. The seed grows into the seedling, the seedling grows into the tree and so on, just as the baby grows into the child and the child grows into the adult. Creation is gradual rather than instant. The act of creation is not confined to conception or to birth or to physical life, but is an enduring process that continues into the afterlife. For those who then want to know why does creation have to be gradual, why does a process have to be involved, I can best offer the answer given to my brother and myself when we put this very question to an eminent Hindu teacher, 'Go and find God and ask him' (words whose deeper significance has become increasingly apparent to me as time has gone by). It is simply the way that creation is. We are each an expression of the infinite diversity of reality, and we should be grateful that we are given our own particular part to play in the universal scheme of things. We are, as I said in the last chapter, a work in progress rather than a finished article.

― David Fontana ‘Life Beyond Death’​

Click to expand...

While agreeing with what David Fontana says above another factor that I believe is involved is free will and the opportunity that God gives us to be actively involved in this process of spiritual growth or reject it and so determine our own fate rather than have a particular outcome forced on us. No-one including God forces us to grow. The freedom to choose how we behave and what we believe is what makes us human rather than puppets, robots or animals that live only by instinct. Hell is described in numerous sources I've come across as a place or more accurately a state of mind in which people who have lived selfish lives needlessly harming others find themselves in after death and they can choose to remain there by closing their minds to change and rejecting all offers of help to teach them how to evolve out of their predicament. We are therefore free to determine our own destiny and free to believe that humans are 'not special' as Luke212 and some other overclockers forum members believe and take our time coming to the realisation that this view may be wrong. If you read the final quote below by Seth regarding the nature of God you will find that according to Seth God is not a static God but rather is growing and changing just as we are. The universe itself which evolved from the simple to the complex after the big bang reveals that God believes in evolution rather than a static unchanging 'perfect' universe created in a single act.

As an example of the breadth of material covered by Seth the quote below by Seth gives the best explanation I've seen in human terms of what God is and why we came into being. Seth refers to God as 'All That Is' and suggests that God is an 'energy gestalt' of all the consciousness contained within and outside the universe and that being a gestalt means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I myself have long held the view that if there is a God then God would be some kind of all-pervasive conscious intelligent form of energy much like Seth describes. Seth's view of the nature of God will not please Christians since by my reading it seems to infer that God is almost but not quite omnipotent and that God is not complete and is in a constant state of evolution just as we are:

"He is not human in your terms, though he passed through human stages; and here the Buddhist myth comes closest to approximating reality. He is not one individual, but an energy gestalt.*

* Gestalt = a pattern of individual parts so unified as a whole that it cannot be described merely as a sum of its parts

This absolute, ever-expanding, instantaneous psychic gestalt, which you call God if you prefer, is so secure in its existence that it can constantly break itself down and rebuild itself.

Its energy is so unbelievable, that it does indeed form all universes; and because its energy is within and behind all universes, systems and fields, it is indeed aware of each sparrow that falls, for it is each sparrow that falls.

Now - and this will seem like a contradiction in terms - there is nonbeing. It is a state of, not of nothingness, but a state in which probabilities and possibilities are known and anticipated but blocked from expression.

Dimly, through what you would call history, hardly remembered, there was such a state. It was a state of agony in which the powers of creativity and existence were known, but the ways to produce them were not known.

This is the lesson that All That Is had to learn, and that could not be taught. This is the agony from which creativity originally was drawn, and its reflection is still seen.

Some of this discussion is bound to be distorted, because I must explain it to you in terms of time as you understand it. So I will speak for your benefit, of some indescribably distant past in which these events occurred.

All That Is retains memory of that state, and it serves as a constant impetus - in your terms - toward renewed creativity. Each self (you), as a part of All That Is therefore also retains memory of that state. It is for this reason that each minute consciousness is endowed with the impetus toward survival, change, development, and creativity. It is not enough that All That Is as a primary energy gestalt, desires further being, but each portion of It (you) also carries this determination.

Yet the agony itself was used as the means, and the agony itself served as the impetus, strong enough so that All That Is initiated within Itself the means to be.

If - and this is impossible - all portions but the most minute last 'unit' of All That Is were destroyed, All That Is would continue, for within the smallest portion is the innate knowledge of the whole. All That Is protects Itself, therefore, and all that It has and is and will create.

When I speak of All That Is, you must understand my position within It. All That Is knows no other. This does not mean that there may not be more to know. It does not know whether or not other psychic gestalts like It exist. It is not aware of them if they do exist. It is constantly searching. It knows that something else existed before Its own primary dilemma when it could not express itself.

It is conceivable then, that It has evolved, in your terms, so long ago It has forgotten Its origin, that It has developed from still another Primary which has - again, in your terms - long since gone Its way. So there are answers that I cannot give you, for they are not known anywhere in the system in which we have our existence. We do know that within this system of our All That Is, creation continues and developments are never still.

The first state of agonized search for existence may have represented the birth throes of All That Is as we know it.

In other words, All That Is existed in a state of being, but without the means to find expression for Its being. This was the state of agony of which I spoke.

The agony and the desire to create represented Its proof of Its own reality. The feelings, in other words, were adequate proof to All That Is that It was.

At first, in your terms, all of probable reality existed as nebulous dreams within the consciousness of All That Is. Later, the unspecific nature of these 'dreams' grew more particular and vivid. The dreams became recognizable one from the other until they drew the conscious notice of All That Is. And with curiosity and yearning, All That Is paid more attention to Its own dreams.

It then purposely gave them more and more detail, and yearned toward this diversity and grew to love that which was not yet separate from Itself. It gave consciousness and imagination to personalities (us) while they were still within Its dreams. They also yearned to be actual.

Potential individuals, in your terms, had consciousness before the beginning or any beginning as you know it, then. They (you) clamored to be released into actuality, and All That Is, in unspeakable sympathy, sought within Itself for the means.

His was in your terms a primary cosmic dilemma, and one with which It wrestled until All That Is was completely involved and enveloped within that cosmic problem.

Had It not solved it, All That Is would have faced insanity, and there would have been, literally, a reality without reason and a universe run wild.

The pressure came from two sources: from the conscious but still probable individual selves who found themselves alive in God's dream, and from the God who yearned to release them.

This, then, is the dilemma of any primary pyramid gestalt: It creates reality. It also recognized within each consciousness (you) the massive potential that existed. The means, then, came to It. It must release the creatures and probabilities from Its dream.

To do so would give them actuality. However, it also meant 'losing' a portion of Its own consciousness, for it was within that portion that they were held in bondage. All That Is had to let go.

With love and longing It let go that portion of Itself, and they (souls) were free. The psychic energy exploded in a flash of creation (big bang).

All That Is, therefore, 'lost' a portion of Itself in that creative endeavor. All That Is loves all that is has created down to the least, for It realizes the dearness and uniqueness of each consciousness which has been wrest from such a state and at such a price.

It, of Itself and from this state, has given life to infinities of possibilities. From Its agony, It found the way to burst forth in freedom, through expression, and in so doing gave existence to individualized consciousnesses. Therefore It is rightfully jubilant.

Yet all individuals remember their source, and now dream of All That Is as All That Is once dreamed of them. And they yearn toward that immense source... and yearn to set It free and give It actuality through their own creations.

These connections between you and All That Is can never be severed, and Its awareness is so delicate and focused that Its attention is indeed directed with a prime creator's love to each consciousness."

At the end of this session with Jane Roberts, Seth said that his words should be read many times, "for there are implications that are not obvious."

Seth also said...

"Even this overall pyramid gestalt (God) is not static. Most of your God concepts deal with a static God, and here is one of your main theological difficulties. The awareness and experience of this gestalt changes and grows. There is no static God. When you say 'This is God,' then God is already something else."

"All portions of All That Is are constantly changing, enfolding and unfolding. All That Is, seeking to know Itself, constantly creates new versions of Itself. For this seeking Itself is a creative activity and is the core of all action."

― Seth speaking through medium Jane Roberts​

Click to expand...

Postscript:
After posting the above I ended up going to my second séance conducted by Kai Muegge the only medium in the world I know of that demonstrates ectoplasm in red light at his séances and it had such an impact on me that I felt compelled to add an account of this experience to my post. I prefer to add the account as a postscript to my first post in this topic rather than resurrect the topic with a new post at the end and then watch more close minded sceptics that reject anything that conflicts with their rigid belief system and narrow worldview, respond by posting more insults and ridicule.

The séance took place on October 29th 2013 at the same place at Wallacia on the outskirts of Sydney as the previous séance I attended. I found it to be a worthwhile and valuable experience with the highlight for me being seeing ectoplasm in red light. The experience also supported the validity of the Scole Experiment because I witnessed a number of the same phenomena that were reported to have occurred in the Scole Experiment.

Both séances that I have attended have been valuable each in a different way.

While my first séance involved some impressive physical phenomena (a table and a megaphone levitated and did some spectacular acrobatics) the majority of the séance consisted of people from the afterlife dimension speaking through the medium (Tom Morris) with the main spirit entity that came through, John Sloane, impressing me with his caring, wise and intelligent personality and the way that he answered questions. John Sloane did something subtle but significant (to me) at the end of the séance that provided a strong clue that the séance was genuine.

My second séance conducted by the medium Kai Muegge, with Hans Bender the main spirit guide from the other dimension speaking through the medium acting as master of ceremonies, took a different approach with an emphasis on physical paranormal phenomena as evidence of the existence of other dimensions awaiting us after we die. This was done in an impressive and at times awe inspiring manner.

When I saw the medium Kai Muegge approaching the room I sat in while waiting for the séance to begin my first impression was one of surprise at how casual and relaxed he looked. I couldn't help thinking that if he was a con-artist he was the most relaxed con-artist I'd ever seen because he appeared unconcerned about what he was about to do and to have complete confidence that the spirit helpers were going to show up and play their part and that's exactly what happened! Presumably he allows himself to be used by entities in the afterlife dimension while in trance and he probably has limited awareness of what is going on hence there is no need for him to worry about what was going to happen. He has also probably conducted so many séances in the past that there was no doubt in his mind as to the reliability of the spirit entities showing up. Cynics and sceptics might say that he was relaxed and confident because he had successfully fooled people so many times in the past but what I witnessed that night left me with no doubt that he is genuine.

Before the séance began he gave an introductory lecture. It was a long rambling talk about the type of mediumship he does and how it differs from the types of mediumship traditional in the US and UK as well as some guidelines to prepare us for what we were about to experience.

I was one of 2 people chosen to search the séance room including the cabinet at the front that the medium sat in while producing ectoplasm. Neither of us found any evidence of anything suspicious. I checked the chairs and the props that were going to be used (a plastic bucket, a few balls covered in cloth, a handkerchief, a ceramic tile and a megaphone) and every inch of the inside of the cabinet room. The cabinet was basically just a rectangular frame with plywood walls and ceiling with a black curtain at the front that you could pull over to cover the medium as he sat inside.

Before entering the séance room every person was searched including being checked with a metal detector for things like a torch or a camera with a flash that might be used to take a photo of the medium while ectoplasm was coming out of him which if it happened could be injurious (even life threatening) to the medium because of the way that ectoplasm reacts to white light. Kai Muegge explained during his introductory lecture that someone once did something silly during one of his séances that caused the ectoplasm to shoot back into his body causing him pain and to bleed from the mouth and nose. In the past a few mediums have been seriously hurt and one or two may have died as a result of injuries sustained from people doing the wrong thing.

There were 17 of us in total consisting of 14 sitters that paid $95 each (Kai Muegge clearly wasn't doing it for the money) plus Kai Muegge, his wife and Inge Crosson the woman that provided the facility free of charge for the séance. We sat in a semicircle around the cabinet located at the front of the room and after a few minutes Kai Muegge entered the séance room doing a strange kind of rapid heavy breathing called ‘hollotropic breathing’ which he had already been doing for about 20 minutes in private while we were searched and assigned our seats. He made occasional loud grunting noises while breathing rapidly in this peculiar manner. The hollotropic breathing was presumably designed to put him into a receptive state for Hans Bender to take over his body (and I'm guessing for his ego to become quiet and move aside).

Each of us was required to hold hands almost continuously for the entire approximately 2 ½ hours that the séance went. This was to ensure that no-one could be accused of being an accomplice to what occurred by getting out of their chair or doing anything underhanded in the dark. It was also designed to act as an alarm system in case anyone tried to do anything silly like rush the medium and grab him or take a photo of him with a camera that wasn't detected during the search, while ectoplasm was coming out of him. If anyone stopped holding hands we were instructed to call out immediately and the séance would have halted and possibly ended completely depending on the reason it happened.

So that there could be no accusation of fraud on the medium's part involving getting up in the dark without anyone knowing both the medium's hands were held by the persons sitting on each side of him as well as a hand placed on each of the medium’s legs. If the medium attempted to get up the sitters monitoring him were instructed to yell out. Kai Muegge told us that even if he wanted to be deceptive and commit fraud his wife would not have allowed it and she didn’t come across to me as someone that would be party to outright fraud.

The séance started in darkness in dramatic fashion with several extremely loud bangs on the walls of the cabinet or the front wall of the séance room (the banging definitely came from inside not the outside the room). A number of women in the audience shrieked when this happened but I remained calm and rational because I wanted to interpret what I experienced objectively and look for any signs of trickery. The banging sounded like a person slamming his closed fist against the cabinet wall and my automatic reaction was to wonder if it might be Kai Muegge doing it but then I remembered that he was being monitored by the sitter on each side of him holding both of his hands and legs with the instruction to yell out if he got up so it couldn't have been him or any member of the audience as we were all holding hands! The banging turned out to be Hans Bender the spirit guide from the afterlife dimension announcing his arrival in dramatic fashion! When he lived on earth (1907-1991) Hans Bender was a lecturer in parapsychology at an institute in Freiburg Germany that he set up.

Hans Bender then spoke through the medium. His voice sounded very similar to Kai Muegge's voice which was understandable as he was using Kai Muegge's body and vocal chords and his nationality was the same as Kai Muegge's so English was spoken with a German accent. His personality was also quite similar to Kai Muegge's but in my opinion not identical. Hans Bender explained that the séance was going to be conducted in several phases building up to showing ectoplasm in red light. This turned out to be the case with a series of impressive phenomena occurring ending in ectoplasm in red light which I'll describe in detail later. Ectoplasm is a kind of life force substance that we all supposedly contain that can be drawn out of us by people in the afterlife dimension which they can use to produce phenomena in light (principally red light). There are many photos of ectoplasm on the internet and pretty much all of them in my opinion are crude fakes consisting of cotton wool, cheesecloth, toilet paper etc with some involving using photos of people cut from newspapers stuck to cotton wool to create the illusion of human faces appearing in ectoplasm.

I'll now list the phenomena I witnessed in summary form as I remember them before describing the one I saw that impressed me the most and provided striking evidence of another dimension with intelligent beings living in it that are able to communicate with us under favourable circumstances and that our spirit goes to after we are finished with our earth incarnations.

Summary Outline of the Phenomena I Witnessed:

• Numerous members of the audience were touched on the head in quick succession and then people were touched on the feet (we had all removed our shoes and left them outside the séance room). As each person was touched he/she called out. The sceptics would say that darkness allowed the medium or an accomplice to sneak around in the dark and touch the sitters but since all of us including the medium held hands this couldn't be the case. This same phenomenon occurred during many of the Scole Experiment sessions.

• A series of sharp pinpoints of lights flashed in quick succession in a wide clockwise pattern across the front of the room. When I saw them my first thought was to wonder if that they been created by some sort of laser device but as we were all holding hands and the medium’s hands were also being held along with his legs this couldn't have been the source of the lights. The lights also flashed in mid-air not on the wall of the cabinet or the séance room which would be the case if a laser device was used. Hans Bender announced that there had been a problem with the effect that his spirit team was trying to achieve so they had decided to abandon it and move on to the next phenomena. It then occurred to me that I was probably the only person in the room that had seen the lights because if others had they would have called out. The lights were not strong but still clearly noticeable to me because I happened to be looking in the right place when they occurred. I remembered that a similar sort of thing happened during the Scole Experiment with the spirit entities sometimes only achieving a weak effect but then producing a stronger one in subsequent sessions after experimenting and refining the method used.

• A handkerchief with numerous spots around the perimeter of it that glowed in the dark was handed to one of the sitters by Kai Muegge’s wife with the instruction to only let go of the handkerchief if it was tugged strongly. While the sitter held an edge of the handkerchief with her arm extended I saw the other end of the handkerchief rise and pulled away so strongly that the woman let go and the handkerchief was propelled to the other side of the circle where it fell to the floor. This was done a couple of times with different sitters holding the handkerchief. Big deal you might say but remember that every person held hands while this happened and the medium was also being monitored by the sitter on each side to make sure that he remained sitting in his chair so no (human) person in the room could be doing it.

• A luminescent ceramic tile was placed in the middle of the circle and a hand was seen by some sitters forming above it in the light given off by the tile. I only saw what looked like a vague luminescent mist above the tile. I guessed that this was because the outline of the hand was quite dim and I was much further away from the tile than those that saw it.

• Three small soft cloth covered luminescent balls that glowed in the dark were placed on top of an inverted plastic bucket in the middle of the circle and the balls were seen to suddenly scatter in several directions and move along the floor propelled by an invisible force. This was repeated a couple of times.

• A light appeared and whizzed around the room rapidly pausing intermittently in front of various people and then raced off again. I found this to be quite impressive. While the light was darting around the room the sitters holding the medium were asked by Hans Bender to confirm if the medium was still in his chair and they confirmed that he was still in his chair proving that the source of the light could not be coming from any person in the room as all of us were holding hands. This light did some impressive acrobatics travelling around the room at times close to the sitters and pausing briefly before some sitters before whizzing off again.

• A megaphone with several luminescent spots on both ends to make it visible in the dark was placed on top of an inverted plastic bucket in the middle of the room and we all watched it levitate up near the ceiling and whiz around the room at speed stopping briefly in front of some sitters before taking off again. I was particularly impressed by this because the megaphone dropped to the floor a couple of times on stopping and I heard it clatter as it hit the floor which confirmed to me that it was the megaphone that had been flying around the room. After each time it fell to the floor it levitated back up above our heads and resumed zooming around the room. While the megaphone whizzed around the room (with some women in the room shrieking loudly as it did so) Hans Bender asked the sitters monitoring Kai Muegge if he was still in his chair and they confirmed that he was and since the rest of us were holding hands whoever or whatever was responsible for the megaphone levitating and whizzing around the room it couldn't have been caused by any human in the room.

• With a light illuminating Kai Muegge and the area around him Hans Bender asked one of the sitters to sit cross legged on the floor in front of the medium. Kai Muegge then lifted his left arm shoulder height stretching it out in front of him with his forearm bent at a right angle so it was parallel to his chest and his palm and fingers were outstretched. Hans Bender then asked the volunteer to thoroughly examine his arm and hand for any foreign object (the medium wore a short sleeved shirt so there was no possibility of anything concealed in his shirt being used) and the woman volunteer announced that the medium’s hand contained no foreign objects. The medium then groaned loudly with such an intensity it reminded me of a woman in labour giving birth and after about 15 seconds of this intense groaning (which I'm guessing may have been for dramatic effect rather than necessary!) an apport (an object transported paranormally from one place to another) appeared below the medium’s outstretched palm and dropped to the floor!

It's important to note that the woman sitting cross legged on the floor was sitting with her head no more than about 30 cm from the medium’s outstretched palm looking up at his palm so she had an excellent view and there was a light illuminating the medium and his arm so we could see what was happening. The woman sitting cross legged on the floor and the sitters in close proximity confirmed that they saw the crystal stone appear just below the medium’s outstretched hand (I was too far away to see this) and the woman showed it to everyone after the séance was over. I examined it and it was a hard, smooth clear piece of stone with coloured minerals in the centre of it.

Hans Bender then announced that ectoplasm would be produced from the medium. This was what I had been waiting for and one of the main reasons I went to the séance. For this to occur the medium was required to be in the cabinet and he moved his chair back into the cabinet behind him while sitting in it and still in trance. The curtain in front of the cabinet was then pulled across by his wife and we were all asked to sing (to music played by Kai Muegge’s wife) for several minutes as Hans Bender and his spirit team of ‘chemists’ did something from their dimension designed to cause ectoplasm to come from the medium’s mouth.

After several minutes of singing we were asked to stop and Kai Muegge’s wife then turned on a red light that illuminated the cabinet and pulled the curtain back. I then witnessed something remarkable that I'll never forget. I observed a luminescent whitish almost clear (I could see inside it but not behind it) gas like structure in the middle of the cabinet (I didn't see Kai Muegge because the structure obscured him). It looked maybe 80 cm wide, a little less than that high and maybe 50 cm deep. The structure had stringy strands of a darker material scattered through it which helped to define it as having depth and it was expanding and contracting and it also moved slightly in a clockwise and then anti-clockwise direction. From the way it moved I had the distinct impression that it was being controlled by the spirit entities from the other dimension who were manipulating it so that we could see it from different angles. I was fortunate to have a very clear view of it because I looked at it directly front-on with an unimpeded view.

Then as I watched the ectoplasm pulsating and slowly changing shape in the right half of it I saw a hand in it! The hand must have formed in the ectoplasm after the curtain was opened because it wasn't there when I initially saw the mass of ectoplasm. The hand was small but clearly defined and it ended a little above the wrist and while the rest of the ectoplasm (apart from the stringy strands in it) looked almost like luminescent transparent water the hand was a dense greyish colour so it stood out very clearly against the surrounding much lighter material. The fingers of the hand moved slightly and the entire hand rotated slightly as if controlled by the spirit entities to show it off from different angles. I then watched the hand move out towards us and then withdrew back into the ectoplasm and disappear. It was surreal to say the least yet my clear view left me in no doubt as to the reality of what I saw despite it defying the known laws of science!

Of all of the phenomena I witnessed that night this one stands out the most in my memory because of how clearly I saw it from my front-on view of the ectoplasm and the hand that formed in it and because the curtain remained open long enough for me to be certain of what I saw. Note that Kai Muegge's wife only kept the curtain open for no more than 6 or 7 seconds each time that ectoplasm was displayed presumably because of the danger to her husband with the ectoplasm being exposed to light. This was long enough for me to be certain that this was genuine ectoplasm and that it could not have been produced by trickery. I don't care how clever and cunning you are there is no way known for a human being to produce what I saw by trickery under those conditions and with the controls in place because the ectoplasm was a living pulsating structure changing shape and size as I watched it. It confirmed to me that ectoplasm does exist and that it can be produced by some mediums.

To demonstrate the control that Hans Bender's spirit team had over ectoplasm Hans Bender then asked Kai Muegge’s wife to close the curtain and he announced that he would again show us ectoplasm but that it would have a different shape and appearance to the ectoplasm we had just seen. We were asked to sing again and before the curtain was opened Bender described what the ectoplasm should look like and then the curtain was pulled back and we were treated to the sight of more ectoplasm. This time it was a tall narrow column of a dense white cloud like material but with dark areas in it. Unlike the previous ectoplasm it was too dense to see inside it.

After Kai Muegge’s wife closed the curtain Hans Bender then said that his spirit team would create a likeness of a deceased relative of someone in the audience in the ectoplasm! Hans Bender said that the person whose likeness would appear died at the age of 93. After several more minutes of singing we were asked to stop and Kai Muegge’s wife turned on the red light to illuminate the cabinet and pulled the curtain away and there was a narrow column of ectoplasm on the left side of the cabinet. I saw a dense lattice of white interconnected strands in it and there was a shape of a human head in it but the head was upside down! No member of the audience recognised the face as that of a dead relative before the curtain was pulled back across the cabinet by Kai Muegge's wife.

Hans Bender then told us that he didn’t know why the head was upside down and that he would try to get his spirit team to turn it the right way round to make it easier for someone in the audience to recognise it. After more singing when the red light was switched on and the curtain was pulled back the ectoplasm was again visible with the head in it but it was still upside down. This time however after the curtain was closed a woman in the audience called out that she recognised the face as her dead grandfather and that he used to show off his acrobatic skills by standing on his head in front of the family after dinner each night! The woman said that her grandfather was so good at standing on his head that he was able do it without using his hands to steady himself.

The reason the head in the ectoplasm was inverted was now apparent. It was the spirit team's way of making it easier for the woman to recognise her grandfather in the ectoplasm. While I saw part of the ectoplasm I didn't see the head because of the position of the ectoplasm to my left and only being visible for perhaps 5 seconds before the curtain was pulled back but the woman who recognised her grandfather got a good view of it because it was directly in front of her. This suggests that the spirit team knew where each of us was sitting and positioned the ectoplasm to give the woman the best chance to recognise her grandfather. While this didn't conclusively prove survival after death because the head was only a likeness of the woman's grandfather it was convincing evidence of contact with another dimension.

What I saw by the way also confirmed in my mind that the majority of the photos of ectoplasm taken in the first half of the last century that I’ve seen on the internet are fakes. To capture the real thing in the past using a camera would have been next to impossible because white light causes ectoplasm to instantly shoot back into the medium doing harm to the medium’s body and possibly even killing the medium. There are special cameras today capable of capturing ectoplasm but these would not have been readily available in the past. Cameras have recently been used to capture ectoplasm at a Kai Muegge séance (see: http://felixcircle.blogspot.com.au/) and they show ectoplasm similar in appearance to the second and third instances of ectoplasm I witnessed at the séance that I attended (however the first instance of ectoplasm I saw with the hand in it was different).

The ectoplasm in red light was the last of the phenomena I witnessed at the séance. From what I witnessed I concluded that while our intense form of light is incompatible with the laws governing the dimension that the spirit entities live in darkness allows the spirit entities to make their presence known in ways like touching, levitating objects etc and ectoplasm allows a visible dramatic and unequivocal way of making their presence known by using a coating of ectoplasm for protection so that faces, hands etc can be formed that are visible to the eye in (red) light. It makes sense that both dimensions must operate under different laws to ensure that they remain separate under normal conditions otherwise chaos would ensue.

Following the demonstrating of ectoplasm we then listened to Hans Bender conclude the séance with a brief talk during which he warned us that the excesses of capitalism were destroying the planet. While he was right I didn't see much point to him telling us this without at least offering some positive alternatives. He also urged each of us to become ‘warriors for the spirit’. Both statements sounded a little trite and naïve to me coming from a spirit speaking from another dimension that didn't have to worry about food, shelter and survival! Realistically speaking unless far more unequivocal proof of communication with beings in another dimension that awaits us after death is forthcoming in the future evidence provided by mediums channelling spirits and séances where phenomena like touching, lights, apports, levitation and even ectoplasm occur are always likely to be looked upon with scepticism by the majority of people and warnings like the one Bender gave ignored.

Hans Bender then said something that I considered to be significant. He said that we shouldn't think of the afterlife as being a continuation of life as we know it on earth. In human terms he said that there is no such thing as an afterlife. While he didn't explicitly say it at the séance Bender has indicated in the past that our ultimate destiny once we are done with our human incarnations is a form of consciousness not confined by boundaries such as a body. He describes the afterlife as a 'space in which consciousness core fields are projecting onto different physical levels of existence'. From this space we are able to explore the multidimensional universe projecting our consciousness into different dimensions and in the process move closer to the ultimate source consciousness-God. A form of pure consciousness occupying 'an area' is also what the spirit communicators indicated they were in response to the Ibiza Questions posed by Dr Hans Schaer during the Scole Experiment (see Robin Foy's book 'Witnessing the Impossible' pages 200 to 203). It is also in a nutshell what Seth says is our destiny in the book 'Seth Speaks' and the other Seth books channelled through medium Jane Roberts. Here we see the same important core idea being communicated from different sources.

After briefly socialising following the séance I left for home at around midnight. I have no doubt that what I experienced that night was genuine and not some elaborate hoax for the purpose of duping people out of money. While some mediums are phonies I'm certain that neither Kai Muegge nor the two guys that conducted the other séance that I attended almost 3 years earlier at the same location fall into this category. Because of the strict controls in place during the séance the possibility of either the medium or an accomplice among the sitters being involved in some sort of elaborate and sophisticated deception was in my opinion zero. Even if the strict controls had not been in place and you had the opportunity to perpetrate fraud no-one no matter how clever they are could have produced the ectoplasm I saw with the hand and head in it by trickery.

What will those of you that I have labelled as 'swine' in response to your ridiculing of my posts make of all of this? You will reject any evidence that conflicts with your dogmatic rigidly held conviction that there is no such thing as a soul or an afterlife. You have to reject what I have put forward no matter how compelling the evidence in order to protect your comfortable rigid narrow worldviews however those of you who are more open minded I hope got something of value from my post. Because I personally experienced all of the things that I described that happened at the séance I'm certain that what I experienced was genuine. It also confirmed that the accounts I'd read about the Scole Experiment were genuine. My experience at this latest séance I attended makes me more certain that we are not just clever animals and that we have a spirit and a soul and that we are part of something amazing beyond our wildest imagination that even the many closed minded sceptics among you will eventually come to accept.

Postscript:I wrote the above impressions of the séance I attended conducted by Kai Muegge not long after attending it when going to séances was new to me and I was naïve in relation to what evidence for an afterlife you can trust and what evidence needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Following the séance my views gradually evolved over time as I learned about things like fraudulent mediums. If you read on you’ll see that my impressions change from initially being highly impressed as shown by the above report to becoming sceptical about some parts of the séance (the edit immediately following this postscript reflects the start of this process) and finally to my concluding that ALL OF WHAT I WITNESSED AT THE SÉANCE WAS A LOAD OF FRAUDULENT BULLSHIT for reasons I explain as my post continues. Despite this I continue to believe in the existence of an afterlife.

Edit:
While I continue to believe that the phenomena I observed at the above séance involving loud banging on the cabinet or wall behind it, an array of faint lights appearing in series behind and above Kai Muegge, a light appearing and moving around the room and pausing before people, a trumpet levitating and flying around the room and pausing in front of people, sitters being touched by 'spirit beings' and an apport (a smooth piece of coloured stone) produced in light (admittedly dim light) in view of everyone were genuine paranormal phenomena I no longer have the same degree of confidence in the parts of the séance to do with the production of ectoplasm (which I only got a very brief look at and some aspects of which that I won’t elaborate on here trouble me) and Hans Bender being channelled. I’d need Kai Muegge (and the room) to be thoroughly searched (including a cavity search) at the end of the séance to remove ambivalent feelings I have about the ectoplasm I saw and as far as channelling Hans Bender goes while Kai Muegge possibly was channelling someone from the other side there’s no way of being certain of this or that it was Hans Bender being channelled due to Bender revealing nothing personal about himself. The more I think about it the more ambivalent my feelings are as to whether he channelled anyone given the lack of personal information, character and personality revealed by Bender along with the fairly shallow nature of the comments made by Bender at the end of the séance.

This was only the second séance I have attended and being a relative novice to such events the natural human tendency is to be highly impressionable both during and after such events with one’s objectivity and finer powers of perception being blunted to some degree by a range of emotions (this is evident in the awe and amazement reflected in my summary of the séance above which was compiled not long after attending it). This edit reflects my having had time to think objectively on what I witnessed and as a result conclude that because many of the phenomena that I observed during the séance were to my mind genuine due to the strong controls in place to guard against fraud it would be a mistake to automatically conclude that of all of the phenomena must have been genuine. The phenomena that did not have strong controls in place I have less confidence in.

Given the strong controls in place while the more basic physical phenomena (the ones listed at the top of this edit) occurred I believe they were genuine but my doubts about the production of ectoplasm and the channelling of Hans Bender brings up the possibility of mixed mediumship being involved (I’m not saying categorically that this was the case only that it’s a possibility) and if that was the case it brings up questions about the integrity of spirit beings that would willingly and knowingly (they’d have to know) take part in such a thing. Mixed mediumship may also be a possibility with another medium currently performing around the world with in my opinion valid questions having been raised about the veracity of some aspects of séances conducted by him in the past. In contrast two mediums that appear to be untainted by any hint of suspicion as to the genuineness of phenomena at séances conducted by them are Gordon Garforth and Gary Mannion *.

Note that since I’ve had considerable time to calmly and objectively reflect on my experience of the first séance that I attended several years earlier given by medium Tom Morris I still continue to believe that all of what I witnessed at that séance was genuine. During the séance I witnessed a small table and trumpet levitate and do some spectacular acrobatics while up near the ceiling that were in my view impossible to perform fraudulently under the conditions that the séance was held. The table and trumpet were definitely up there each spinning on its own axis while both moved around in a single wider circle at the same time. How can I be sure that they were up there? My eyes remained focussed on the luminescent tabs attached to the trumpet and table as they rose and did their acrobatics and as they came down and settled on the floor and for the rest of the séance until the lights were switched on and I saw no sign of anything to suggest the movements of the lights were done through some sort of electronic illusion. The table and trumpet in my opinion were definitely up there spinning in a way that couldn't have been achieved through trickery.

While the table and trumpet were doing these impressive levitation acrobatics a tambourine and drum located at the front of the room on the left side played loudly apparently of their own accord. While this was going on at the front of the room several apports appeared and dropped one after another at the back of the room where I was seated. One of these apports dropped in the dark brushing my leg while the other apports brushed the legs of people adjacent to me as they dropped. The way the apports dropped suggested to me deliberate precise placement in pitch dark which in my opinion was extremely unlikely to be successfully achieved by someone sneaking around in the dark.

For all of these phenomena to occur simultaneously by means of fraud would in my opinion have been impossible. During the séance medium Tom Morris channelled John Sloane from the afterlife dimension and he revealed a great deal of his personality and character as well as talking about some of his experiences while alive on earth and this gave me more confidence that it really was John Sloane speaking compared to Hans Bender who revealed nothing about his life on earth or his personality. John Sloane also did something subtle at the end of the séance that would take me too long to explain which gave me a strong clue I really was listening to someone speaking from the afterlife dimension.

The lessening of confidence about a couple of the phenomena (ectoplasm and whether Hans Bender was being channelled) I observed at the séance given by Kai Muegge also applies to references I made to these (mainly the ectoplasm) in later posts in this topic. Note that this caveat does not alter my conviction in the slightest that humans have a soul and that there is an afterlife.

*****************************************​

The Thorny Issue of Mediums and Séances

*Since I wrote the above medium Gary Mannion who I referred to earlier as appearing to be untainted by any hint of suspicion of not being genuine has been exposed as a phony ( see: http://garyfiles.co.uk/ and http://www.spiritualismlink.com/t2350-gary-mannion-videos ). While it’s disappointing to learn something like this it makes no difference to my belief that humans have a soul and that there is an afterlife.

Dishonest mediums duping people for personal gain (monetary gain and a superficial feeling of significance) by giving performances that are like a sideshow at a carnival and providing no evidence for survival have always been around. I believe that such mediums are more common than people realise while genuine mediums that provide credible meaningful evidence of interaction with the spirit world and of survival are a lot rarer than people think. I believe that genuine mediums exist (I continue to believe that the first séance I attended was genuine) but I have more confidence in some I've read about in the past that didn't charge for their services and were thoroughly investigated.

When I go to a séance or I read a report of one where the phenomena primarily consisted of objects apparently being levitated, lights moving around the room, raps on walls etc or even ‘ectoplasm’ that sitters can only glimpse for a few seconds so that you can’t be sure it’s real I can’t help but ask what the point of it is other than to entertain and provide a source of income for the medium. When a medium channels a supposed person from the afterlife but the information forthcoming is non-specific, nebulous and offers no proof of survival I again ask what the point is other than to provide entertainment and a source of income for the medium. As far as I can tell the great majority of séances these days fall into the category of primarily being entertainment.

Because of the dark side of human nature I am sceptical when looking at séances and mediums. This is reflected in the way I changed some of my initial glowing impressions of the séance I went to given by medium Kai Muegge that I recounted in my postscript above not long after going to the séance. Those impressions changed after I had time to carefully and objectively (i.e. coolly without the distortion caused by emotion) reflect on my experience resulting in my views changing so that I only had confidence in some of the physical phenomena I witnessed.

The more basic physical phenomena I witnessed appeared to have been genuine because of the controls in place to satisfy the audience that fraud was impossible however I’ve now thought of a way of doing much of the physical phenomena deceptively despite the controls. Because of this my level of doubt has increased to the point where I've dismissed the experience because of a lack of confidence in it due to uncertainty about the genuineness of any of the phenomena I witnessed. Isn't it interesting how one’s views about a séance can change from highly impressed during the séance and in the days following it to moderately impressed after spending more time thinking about it and then winding up sceptical after having had still more time to coolly and objectively think about the experience and consider alternative possibilities!

I can think of ways of producing apparent paranormal phenomena by deception in the dark with strong controls in place making the phenomena seem impossible to do fraudulently that would have people believing that the phenomena originated from the spirit world despite being nothing more than tricks. How about a sitter’s beloved pet dog apparently materialising and walking around the room and making barking sounds? I can think of a way of doing that. How about a 'spirit' apparently materialising and speaking an ancient oriental or middle-eastern language that no-one can understand? I can think of a way of doing that. How about loud banging on the séance room wall, a trumpet apparently levitating and flying around the room, a light darting around the room and sitters being touched by 'spirit people' and while all of this happens two people assigned the task of holding the medium state that he remained in his chair and all other sitters in the room held hands making such phenomena seem impossible to do fraudulently? I can think of a way of doing these things deceptively despite the controls in place.

The above are just some things I’ve worked out ways of doing by means of trickery (despite me not being a professional magician) while the controls in place make fraud seem impossible. There are others I could list to do with producing 'ectoplasm' however this is not the place for elaborating on such things. Note that I’m not accusing any particular medium of using the fraudulent methods that I've come up with to do any of the things listed above (some of which have occurred at a séance that I attended) because the cover of darkness and the precautions that frauds take to avoid detection makes it almost impossible to prove it. The point I'm making is that if I can think of a way of doing them by means of deception then I have no confidence that they were genuine paranormal phenomena.

Let's assume that you are an average person and you already believe in the afterlife and that contact with the spirit world is possible (most people that go to séances would fall into this category). You attend a séance and you witness the things I mentioned above done using the fraudulent ways I’ve figured out how to do them. The medium is confirmed as not having left his seat by two sitters holding him and all other people held hands while the phenomena happened. You would believe that you were seeing genuine paranormal phenomena and that the medium was genuine when in reality you’d be a victim of sophisticated fraud.

You would believe that the phenomena was genuine not just because you couldn’t see the deception involved but also due to the common human tendency of people to interpret an experience through the filter of their existing belief system and expectations and ‘see’ what they expect to see. This is known as confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out, interpret, favour, and recall information in a way that confirms one's pre-existing beliefs or hypotheses, while giving disproportionately less consideration to alternative possibilities.

An example of consideration being given to alternative possibilities is the question of why there is a need for music to be played and for people to sing at various times during a séance. The reason typically given is to ‘raise the vibrations’ and create a positive atmosphere. Another possible alternative reason might be because music and singing lead to a blunting of peoples' critical faculties and their minds becoming more susceptible to imagination and suggestion, less objective, less perceptive and more easily fooled.

I listen to music when I’m exercising on my treadmill and it has a hypnotic like effect leading to a relaxed non-critical state of revelry. Music allows my imagination to come to the fore and me to lose myself in pleasant fantasies and before I know it the exercise session is over with time having seemingly flown by. This muting of my critical faculties and diminished awareness of time and my surroundings while exercising to music is a good thing making the exercise feel less uncomfortable but I’m not sure that a similar blunting of the critical faculties during a séance resulting from playing of music and people singing is a good thing unless your purpose for going to the séance is solely to be entertained and you aren’t concerned about whether you are being conned!

Singing during a séance often occurs at the beginning before a spirit person appears. Is this because the spirit person needs ‘raised vibrations’ to be able to appear or is it because the sound of the music and singing gives the medium the time he needs to get out of his restraints and mask any sounds he might make while doing so? When people sing between phenomena is it because the spirits need 'raised vibrations' to make the next phenomena occur or is it to give the medium time to prepare for his next illusion without being heard? If sitters are required to sing at the end of the séance is it to keep the 'vibrations' raised so that the spirits can return the ectoplasm back into the medium and go back to the spirit world or is it to give the medium time to get back in his chair, put the restraints back on and relax before the lights are switched on?

I know of a prominent medium who emphasises the critical importance of avoiding 'negative thoughts’ at his séances because they 'lower the vibrations' making it harder for spirits to come through and produce strong phenomena. A possible alternate reason for this along with music being played and people being required to sing repeatedly at his séances is that it leads to muting of the critical faculties and heightens the sense of disorientation that people feel from sitting in unfamiliar circumstances in the dark and all of these things together maximise the medium's chances of successfully fooling the sitters. The muting of critical faculties under such conditions makes it more conducive to sitters believing that what they witnessed was paranormal phenomena in line with their expectations (confirmation bias) and less conducive to having thoughts along the lines of the séance being a series of tricks performed by someone without a conscience for monetary gain under conditions that make fraud extremely hard to detect and even harder to prove.

When people avoid ‘negative thoughts’ in order to 'raise the vibrations' and make the spirits feel welcome they are less likely to have thoughts such as ‘is this a trick?’ or ‘could the medium be waving the trumpet around?’ or 'could the medium be impersonating the spirit?' or ‘why wasn’t I allowed to get a good look at the ectoplasm?' etc. Why would spirits be put off by people using the only sound way available to humans to distinguish reality from illusion? At my first séance I questioned whether what I was witnessing was genuine while the séance was going (I later concluded that it was genuine) and so did the man next to me yet despite our scepticism I witnessed what I later concluded was genuine paranormal phenomena and the spirits appeared without any difficulty. Could it be that it’s not the spirits that don’t want you to question the authenticity of the séance experience but rather the medium because he’s a fraud and he knows that perceptive people who analyse what’s happening are much more likely to work out that they are being conned? If you are a fraudulent medium it's very important that people that attend your séances avoid ‘negative thoughts' in order to maximise the chances of the deception not being detected and for the séance to be 'successful'!

Do people that go to a séance already firmly believing that interaction with the spirit world occurs during séances bother to even consider such alternative possibilities? I do because I don’t have a strong confirmation bias when it comes to mediums and séances. On the other hand people that strongly believe that contact with the spirit world occurs during séances will automatically interpret what they see through the filter of their pre-existing beliefs. This means that unlike myself they will tend to blindly accept that the purpose of avoiding ‘negative thoughts' and of the music and singing is to ‘raise the vibrations’ so there is no need to consider alternative possible reasons for such things.

When séances are conducted in the dark it gives dishonest mediums a huge advantage not just because it’s typically so dark that you can’t see your hand in front of your face and because the way the séance is conducted disorientates the sitters making detecting and proving fraud very difficult but also because most people that attend séances are believers who are prone to confirmation bias. This makes them easier to fool because they will tend to interpret the experience through the filter of their belief system and 'see' and 'hear' what their belief system predisposes them to see and hear. On the other hand when closed minded sceptics attend séances (few do) they will tend to reject what they witness irrespective of how convincing the phenomena is due to their strong belief (confirmation bias) that all mediums are frauds and all paranormal phenomena is due to trickery.

Between the believers and non-believers there is a category of people including myself who are open to the possibility of contact with the spirit world but who will only be persuaded that a medium and phenomena observed might be genuine if there are no credible alternative possible explanations for the phenomena (it also helps if the phenomena is meaningful). If after attending a séance a person in this category has suspicions about the phenomena he/she witnessed having been done fraudulently the person won't be able to prove anything because it all happened in the dark. If the person voices his/her suspicions publicly on a forum of believers he/she will find little support and perhaps even hostility because such forums consist primarily of people who 'know' what they witnessed was genuine.

The upshot is that very few dishonest mediums are exposed due to the difficulty of catching them in the act and proving cheating so it can’t be reasonably denied or excused away. The cheating has to either be recorded on film or witnessed and confirmed by multiple people and be so blatant that it can't be swept under the carpet. Gary Mannion is a rare case of a fraudulent medium being caught out because he didn’t take the stringent precautions that most mediums take to check for things like cameras, torches etc by doing body searches, scanning people with metal detectors and checking for a possible hidden camera setup somewhere in the room. There are undoubtedly more mediums that could be similarly outed as frauds if they were secretly filmed the way that Gary Mannion was. Even when a medium like Gary Mannion is exposed as a fraud there are still people who will refuse to believe it because they are desperate to maintain their belief systems. Such people are in effect closed minded sceptics in reverse!

Why do pretty much all mediums that conduct séances in the dark do the checks mentioned above that Gary Mannion failed to do thoroughly? The stated reason is that ectoplasm when exposed to white light shoots back into the medium’s body and this can seriously harm the medium. I’m sure that I don’t have to spell out the obvious alternate possible reason. Gary Mannion is an example of what can happen when the checks aren’t stringent enough!

Recently a requirement that mediums agree to being filmed by means of a passive infrared camera has been introduced as a condition for mediums conducting séances at a famous centre for physical mediumship that has a long proud history; the Arthur Finley College. Being filmed by an infrared camera could not be harmful to ectoplasm because such cameras transmit no signals and merely convert heat emitted by objects and people in the room into electrical signals yet a couple of prominent mediums have already refused to allow themselves to be filmed this way. Why? The answer to this question for someone like myself that has no strong belief (confirmation bias) in mediums and is dedicated to reality will be quite different to that of someone who is strongly supportive of mediumship and mediums.

Anyone that doesn’t believe that a medium would stoop to using trickery because on the surface he appears to be humble, sincere, honest, friendly etc doesn’t understand human nature and is naïve at best or a gullible fool at worst. There are many people in society that routinely deceive others and don’t feel the slightest guilt about doing so including some mediums. Séances held in complete darkness present ideal conditions for fraud so anything that takes place at séances held in total darkness should always be taken with a grain of salt.

Besides Gary Mannion I could name another current reasonably well known medium charging people money who is obviously a phony (and not too bright based on some of his behaviour and comments) yet he still manages to make a living preying on gullible people without the slightest apparent shred of guilt or regret for doing so.

I also know of another more prominent current medium the genuineness of whose mediumship has been questioned because of incidents that have occurred during his séances and a number of unanswered questions remaining about his mediumship. The suspicions and unanswered questions don’t prove that the medium is a fraud but they raise valid doubts which the medium hasn't seriously attempted to resolve. They are the sort of incidents and questions that one would expect to arise if a medium is fraudulent because no matter how cunning and careful the medium is being only human he will inevitably make occasional small slip ups.

People who have a strong confirmation bias in support of mediumship or this particular medium dismiss these slip ups and the suspicions arising from them, along with the unanswered questions that the medium refuses to address, as being unimportant. This is not so. The slip ups and unanswered questions are important because they are subtle clues indicating that the medium is likely fraudulent. Moreover they are the only sort of evidence likely to surface because of the near impossibility of proving fraud except by secretly filming him (secretly because the medium flatly refuses to allow his séances to be filmed using a harmless infrared camera) and unlike Gary Mannion this particular medium is far too careful to ever allow himself to be secretly filmed.

The slip ups, suspicions and unanswered questions haven't stopped people from going to the medium’s séances but I wouldn't go to one and I doubt that I’d be allowed to attend one if he reads this! I wouldn’t be able to attend one of his séances anonymously either because he requires photo ID to be produced before séances (necessary in order to research sitters on the internet before the séance) and controls the seating in the room (to make it possible to give sitters personal information learned from researching them on the internet) making it nearly impossible for anyone he sees as a threat to sneak into one of his séances. There are quite a few subtle clues hinting that the medium is fraudulent but people with strong pre-existing belief systems (confirmation bias) of the kind that attend séances require proof of the sort that was produced about Gary Mannion to shake them out of the tunnel vision they aren’t aware they have.

You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

Click to expand...

The above quote is particularly relevant and applicable when it comes to séances because they are conducted under conditions ideally suited to successfully fooling people. My views on séances have changed since I started my investigations. I now believe that that most but not necessarily all séances for which money is charged and conducting séances is the main source of income for the medium are fraudulent and the mediums who commit the fraud feel no guilt from doing so. It’s also clear to me now that while it’s true that you cannot fool all of the people all of the time the number that aren’t fooled tends to be relatively small. I’ve also concluded that some prominent mediums commit fraud with the help of an accomplice that shares in the money made and can be relied on not to reveal the fraud because to do so would reflect as badly on the accomplice as on the medium.

Grub first, then ethics.

― Bertolt Brecht​

Click to expand...

There are mediums out there duping people for the simple reason that they can, it's easy money and it beats being unemployed or having to find a proper job and they feel no guilt about it. Any that do feel vague guilt probably rationalise that what they are doing gives people hope and supports the spirit world. I don’t believe that people want that kind of 'hope' and I don’t believe that the spirit world wants or needs that type of ‘support’!

Who is responsible when a medium behaves fraudulently? Gary Mannion claimed that the spirits orchestrated his cheating for a ‘greater purpose’ (the spirits made me do it!) The quality that most separates humans from all other forms of life on earth is the gift of free will and this gift means that humans (with a few exceptions such as the severely mentally ill) whether they like it or not are responsible for their own actions. If the spirits were to override this gift it would violate and disrespect the purpose for which we are here-spiritual growth through the exercise of our free will. It’s true that mediums (genuine ones not the phonies) go into trance states and act as a conduit for spirit to come through during séances but mediums always sit passively in a chair while this happens.

Prior to his exposure Gary Mannion had clearly been cheating for years and aspects of his fraudulent behaviour reflect careful conscious planning and preparation before the séance. One example of this is smuggling the material he used (cheesecloth or whatever) to hang from his mouth to simulate ectoplasm into the séance room hidden somewhere on his person. The claim that spirits made him act like an automaton and behave in unethical ways without him knowing it for a 'greater purpose' is an attempt by the medium to evade personal responsibility for his actions.

****************************************​

Recollections of a séance I concluded was probably genuine

How does the séance I attended given by medium Tom Morris around 5 years ago that I still believe was genuine (the physical phenomena was certainly genuine in my mind) stand up to the sort of criticisms I’ve expressed above about most séances today being little more than shallow entertainment?

The séance was a relaxed affair with next to no security measures taken other than sitters being warned in emails prior to the séance that we would be searched before entering the room however this didn’t happen. Also no ID was required to be produced before the séance or at the venue. This was very different to almost all other séances for which money is charged where the medium goes to great lengths to ensure that no-one tries to sneak in a camera or torch to 'avoid being harmed by ectoplasm' or to avoid being harmed by the loss of income source if the medium is exposed as a fraud. Which of these reasons you accept depends on your pre-existing belief system.

Could this casual attitude towards security compared to the security checks made by most other mediums which borders on paranoia before a séance be because Tom Morris and his assistant conducting the séance had nothing to hide because they weren’t frauds? Also sitters were not required to hold hands throughout the séance and were allowed to stand and stretch but were asked not to move around. No singing was required and music was only played during one period when the physical phenomena occurred all of which happened in one section in the middle of the séance.

On arriving early the first thing that struck me was that probably 70% of the attendees were females and almost but not all of the people attending were middle aged or older. The preponderance of older people made sense for fairly obvious reasons.

I was greeted by a man named Roy who I had a cordial conversation with for around 30 minutes during which I revealed quite a few things about myself with respect to my character and personality including some of my views on the possibility of an afterlife. Roy and I talked about everything from if there is an afterlife then I believe that it followed that there has to be a God, to the morality of humans eating animals for food and me saying that I have a pet cat that I love. My pet cat coincidentally played a crucial part in an incident that happened several years later that I discuss towards the end of this topic (on pages 8 and 11) which confirmed to me that there is a spirit world. Comparing my attitudes and views on issues like séances and evidence for the afterlife back then compared to now I was more innocent and naïve than I am now but even back then I needed considerable convincing that a séance was what it was purported to be.

During my conversation with Roy I told him that I had a couple of questions I intended to ask the spirit (John Sloane) during the séance and I told him the questions and I elaborated a little on why I wanted to know the answers. As it turned out I lost my nerve during the séance because being my first séance I found it a little daunting so I never wound up asking the questions. Later when I considered what happened during the séance this turned out to be serendipitous because of an incident at the end of the séance that helped me to conclude that the séance was genuine.

The physical phenomena all happened in the middle of the séance during about a thirty minute period and so much phenomena happened simultaneously that it would have required a team of accomplices sneaking around in darkness so intense you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, to do them fraudulently. One particular phenomena stood out as being in my opinion impossible to do fraudulently in the circumstances. This is in contrast to other séances where phenomena happen one after another with singing in between while the spirits prepare their next phenomena, or, in the case of a fraudulent medium the next trick is prepared.

During a concentrated period in the middle of the séance devoted to physical phenomena a pair of drums and a tambourine situated at the front left side of the room played loudly (note it didn’t sound like a recording of a drum and tambourine playing), multiple apports appeared at the back of the room, the medium's jumper was apported to a sitter at the side of the room and a table and trumpet did spectacular acrobatics in a manner that I believe was impossible to do by means of trickery. For all of these to be done fraudulently it would have required a number of accomplices sneaking around in pitch black darkness and the accomplices would have to be changed for every séance to avoid suspicion. The phenomena happening simultaneously gave the séance considerably more credibility compared to séances where the phenomena happen one after another with singing in between to 'raise the vibrations' to enable the spirits to 'produce enough energy' to make the next phenomena happen.

I’ll now describe the specific physical phenomena in detail that impressed me above all of the others due to it being impossible (in my opinion) to do by means of fraud. It consisted of a miniature table and trumpet (each probably around 50 cm high) placed at the front of the room about a metre and a half apart with both having a number of luminescent markers on them which glowed in the dark. I watched the table and trumpet levitate up, move slightly closer together and then they began turning in a single circle by my guess around 1.3 metres in diameter with each maintaining its position opposite each other in the circle as they turned. At the same time as the trumpet and table moved around the circle in full view of everyone with the top of the circle being near the ceiling the table and trumpet also both spun rapidly on their own axes. It was an amazing sight! It was certainly far more impressive than the usual single trumpet you see levitating at other séances and moving in a way that could be done by a fraudulent medium by waving it or using means to make it move rapidly so it looks impossible to do by waving it by hand (e.g. using a clamp to hold it and a rod to extend it with the aid of an accomplice).

The trumpet and table did these impressive acrobatics for probably 4 or 5 minutes without any sign of wobbling or deviating from their circular path as they spun on their own axes at the same time. After doing this for a number of minutes they stopped opposite each other in the circle and parallel to the floor. The trumpet stopped above where it had sat on the floor and the table a little to the left of where it had sat and then they floated back down to their original positions. When it was perhaps half a metre from the floor I noted that the table moved a little sideways to the right so it could settle in its original position on the floor. This accurate placement of the table in pitch darkness by making a fine adjustment at the end to move it back to its original spot is not the sort of thing you'd expect to happen if the whole thing was done fraudulently. Whatever was controlling it in the dark knew exactly what was required to return the table to its original position.

While following the luminescent markers on the trumpet and table I made a snap decision to continue to focus intently on the luminescent markers on the trumpet as it came down and after it settled on the floor until the lights went on while I listened to the rest of the séance proceedings. I did this because I wanted be certain it was up there. While I was doing this I didn’t see the slightest sign of any human manipulation such as a movement or blinking off and then back on of the luminescent markers. When the lights came on the trumpet was right where I watched it come down with me still focusing on the luminescent markers! The table and trumpet were definitely up there doing the spectacular acrobatics in a way that was in my opinion impossible for anyone to do fraudulently through some sort of hidden device in the room.

Much to my amusement my sitter friend Roy challenged the medium’s assistant at the end of the séance accusing him of engaging in fraud. He accused the assistant of using an LED torch that he had hidden somewhere on him to project the luminescent markers onto the ceiling or back wall. What Roy claimed couldn’t have been the case because the luminescent markers had spun in mid-air. They were definitely not projected onto the back wall nor the ceiling by means of an LED torch. When he made his accusation Roy also hadn’t considered that the markers on the table and trumpet would have needed to be covered at the exact moment the LED torch was switched on. As for some sort of mechanical device having been used to lift and spin the table & trumpet this was impossible in such a situation because it would have been a very large device and impossible to conceal in the room.

Other phenomena occurred at the back of the room, where I was, at the same time as the trumpet and table did their acrobatics. I was particularly impressed by the placement of multiple apports (3 or 4 ping pong balls) dropped in quick succession in a precise manner so that they brushed sitters’ legs (so the sitters became aware of them in the dark as they dropped). Had the ball not brushed my leg but instead fallen on the floor without touching me I may not have known it had appeared until after the séance and possibly not then if it had rolled under my chair. Had it fallen on my lap I might have been startled but the balls dropped in quick succession brushing the legs of the sitters indicated precise placement and sensitivity to and respect for the sitters. This was something almost impossible for someone sneaking around in the dark to achieve. Such a person would also have had to reach out over people sitting directly in front of me to reach the back row in pitch black darkness to precisely drop the ping pong balls (they dropped vertically so they weren’t thrown from the side) without giving away his presence.

John Sloane answered each question articulately in a measured reflective voice revealing personal details about his time on earth of a type that I’ve not heard at other séances where ‘spirit persons’ appeared. John Sloane also revealed to one sitter who asked a question things about his personality and character that he could see in him presumably from reading his aura. Could it have just been the sort of 'cold reading' that many mediums are accused of doing from clues given out by the sitter from the way that he spoke when asking his question? I don’t know but there were enough details and specific things mentioned to suggest that it wasn’t. I also remember him encouraging sitters to be regressed if they got a chance to remember their past lives confirming that John Sloane believed in reincarnation.

The séance format gave sitters ample opportunity to reflect on the proceedings including to think 'negative' thoughts and I confess to being very sceptical initially. When I heard John Sloane speak my first thought was one of extreme scepticism. I thought to myself how can I be certain that it really is John Sloane or that the other two spirit personalities are who they claim to be rather than the medium impersonating them? The other two spirit personalities were Phil Starr a gay cabaret entertainer who died in 2005 and a woman named Irene (who by the way spoke in a male voice that I presumed was due the spirit using the medium's voice box). Because there was no way of knowing for certain that they were who they claimed I was initially extremely sceptical and remained sceptical after the séance.

Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.

― Jesus Christ​

Click to expand...

It was at home that I gradually arrived at the conclusion that the séance was probably genuine after carefully considering all aspects of the experience. When I reflected on what had happened I noted that while giving an answer to another sitter’s question John Sloane also gave the answer to the first question that I had told Roy the sitter I spoke to on my arrival at the séance that I was going to ask in the séance. Then I remembered reading that others that had gone to the séances in the past had noticed that John Sloane has a habit of doing this. Was this accidental or deliberate? I can’t be certain. For it to have been deliberate the sitters would have had to have been observed by the spirits during their friendly banter between each other before the séance.

What was the question that I intended to ask but didn't that John Sloane answered by apparently cleverly including it as part of another sitter’s answer? It was how do people in the afterlife learn new things if like lives with like on the other side and you don’t have people of dissimilar values creating the sort of contrast and exposure to a range of values and viewpoints that causes people on earth to grow? John Sloane said that in the afterlife if he doesn’t understand something he asks someone above him and if he doesn’t know the answer he asks someone above him.

Then I recalled an incident that occurred just before the séance ended that played a crucial part in convincing me that the séance was genuine. Before the séance concluded John Sloane asked for a person from the back row of the room to ask a question. There were at a guess around 5 or 6 persons in the back row. I was one of them, another was Roy who sat next to me and another was Inge Crosson the woman that hosted the séance that attended all of the séances. In response to John Sloane asking for someone from the back row to ask a question Roy obliged and asked a question which John Sloane answered and then John Sloane again asked for another person from the back row to ask a question. John Sloane was clearly trying to get a particular person in the back row to speak up. When no-one spoke up John Sloane said in an extremely disappointed tone, ‘then I guess we’ll have to call it a night’. The emotion in John Sloane’s voice as he said it was palpable conveying an intense feeling of disappointment because the person he had tried to coax to speak up had failed to do so.

It dawned on me that I was the person that John Sloane was trying to get to ask a question. This was an intuitive educated guess after eliminating Roy and Inge Crosson leaving 3 or 4 people including myself. I believe that John Sloane wanted me to speak up and ask the remaining unanswered question that I had revealed to Roy on arriving. He may also have been impressed with the enthusiasm I showed outside speaking to Roy and wanted to have a conversation with me. This is an intuitive educated guess but experience has taught me that my intuition is very sound. There have been times in my life when faced with a conflict between listening to my intuition or going with my logical side (i.e. my ego) my intuition has consistently proved to be the sounder of the two. Why didn't I notice this during the séance? Because I was intently watching the luminescent markers on the trumpet in the dark and only half listening to the proceedings and I wasn’t relaxed like I was at home as I went over the proceedings in my mind.

Because he knew the precise location in the room of the person that he was trying to coax to speak up I deduced that John Sloane could see the sitters in the dark (presumably their auras) and knew where the person was sitting. He definitely wanted a particular person to speak up and I was one of a possible 3 or 4 persons it might have been. Not speaking up when John Sloane tried to coax a specific person at the back of the room to speak up and John Sloane expressing palpable intense disappointment as a result I have since come to regard as serendipitous giving me an important clue that helped me to conclude that the séance was probably genuine.

From this subtle (but important to me) incident and the impossibility of the physical phenomena of the table and trumpet acrobatics to have been performed fraudulently plus a number of other subtle clues which I’ll elaborate on below the scepticism I had during and immediately after the séance gradually diminished and finally turned into a belief that the medium Tom Morris was probably genuine and had channelled spirits from the afterlife dimension. Could I be wrong and reading things into the séance that were not there because I wanted it to be genuine? I arrived at the séance open minded but requiring considerable proof to conclude that it was genuine and I left the séance extremely sceptical. I had no conscious desire to believe that it was either genuine or fake. Not being able to be sure that your assessment is accurate is one reason that I don't give a lot of weight to séances such as these when looking at evidence for the afterlife.

An important point I want to make here is that the differences between this séance which I concluded was most likely genuine and ones that I regard as shallow forms of entertainment for gullible people are subtle rather than gross. This is just as you’d expect if you think carefully about it because fraudulent mediums are simulating real mediumship and the clever frauds know how to do this up to a point but will not be able to avoid the sort of criticisms I mentioned earlier in my response to Gary Mannion being exposed.

One example of this is the 'spirit' of Hans Bender who lived from 1907 to 1991 (details about whose life are therefore checkable) that shows up at every séance conducted by medium Kai Muegge but who never discusses his life on earth during séances or reveals anything meaningful about the afterlife. Instead this ‘spirit’ acts as a master of ceremonies for a series of physical phenomena with music and singing between each phenomena so sitters don’t have time to think ‘negative’ thoughts such as could an accomplice rather than the medium be sneaking around doing the simpler physical phenomena? If the medium is only impersonating the spirit of the person that lived from 1907 to 1991 then he can’t risk revealing personal details about his past life on earth to prove that he is the spirit of the person he claims to be because mistakes could lead to the genuineness of the medium being seriously questioned. Such criticism cannot be levelled at medium Tom Morris with the spirits coming through offering up personal details about their lives while on earth.

The difference that stood out most between this and other séances that helped me to conclude that the séance was probably genuine was the one I mentioned earlier namely that all of the physical phenomena happened at the same time. It wasn’t just this it was also the complexity of the acrobatics performed by the levitating table and trumpet all but eliminating the possibility of fraud. At other séances you don’t see complex acrobatics of this kind involving two objects levitating and flawlessly performing complex manoeuvres while at the same time other impressive phenomena also occurs. This séance confirmed that Spirits are clearly capable of doing multiple complex phenomena simultaneously without sitters having to avoid ‘negative thoughts’ or sing repeatedly to ‘raise the vibrations’. Fraudulent mediums on the other hand can only do simple phenomena one at a time without risking messing up and being exposed as fraudulent!

John Sloane and the other two spirit personalities answered questions in a manner that sounded sincere without the sort of hesitancy and being careful to avoid saying anything that could be checked later that one would expect to hear from a medium impersonating a spirit. You would expect Phil Starr in particular to be cautious about what he revealed unless it really was Phil Starr because he lived and died relatively recently and details about Phil Starr’s life are potentially checkable. John Sloane revealed personal things about his life on earth such as discussing for instance what it was like suffering dementia at the end of his life. While he spoke in a reflective considered manner I didn’t feel that the words were being carefully chosen to avoid tripping himself up. Note however that I’m no expert in body language and I could be wrong here.

Deceptive people need more time than a truthful person when answering a question. The slowed response is because the person has to determine what words are safe to say. Also liars speak in basic simple terms with lots of generalisations and offering few details. For a fraudulent medium to have enough time to think up an answer to a question by a sitter without hesitating frequently and appearing to be insincere and to guard against occasionally forgetting to choose his words carefully he would need to come up with a mechanism for getting around this issue. One way of doing it is to invent a spirit personality that talks slowly to give that extra little bit of time that a fraud requires to come up with a credible answer to a question.

An example of this is the 'spirit' that appears in the séances conducted by the prominent medium David Thompson I wrote about earlier about whom there are suspicions stemming from past incidents and slip ups and many unanswered questions that the medium has failed to address. The main ‘spirit’ personality William that shows up at all of this medium’s séances talks with an unnatural drawl i.e. a slow speech pattern with prolonged vowels. The drawl gives the medium the crucial extra time needed to consider answers to questions by sitters thereby reducing the risk of saying something that could be proven to be incorrect. Note here that even with this mechanism to help avoid tripping himself up the ‘spirit’ has still made a number of mistakes of a type that a genuine spirit from the spirit dimension would not make but a fraudulent medium impersonating a spirit and being only human would make. I won’t elaborate on the mistakes here.

Some of the mistakes are immediately apparent during the séance but others require scrutiny to detect and the majority of people that go to séances being believers don’t check what was said in the séance against records. People that don’t have strong pre-existing belief systems are able to detect the mistakes by listening to audio of the medium’s séances and comparing what was said with records. The problem has now been addressed to some extent by the medium with audio of his séances no longer freely available for scrutiny by perceptive people. As mistakes that are made are pointed out the fraudulent medium typically adjusts his behaviour to reduce the chances of it happening again. This was also evident in the way that Gary Mannion adjusted his clothing in response to concerns raised by people with vision sharp enough to notice anomalies even in darkness e.g. the 'spirit' wearing black underpants! Audio of séances conducted by medium Tom Morris on the other hand have not revealed any mistakes picked up later by perceptive people that I’m aware of.

Besides inventing a spirit personality that talks with a drawl to give a fraudulent medium time to think and reduce the chances of tripping himself up when responding to sitters a fraudulent medium might also choose to impersonate the spirit of a someone who lived recently but is relatively easy to impersonate safely such as Quentin Crisp who referred to himself as ‘one of the stately homos of England’. Crisp achieved some fame towards the end of his life for speaking in a witty and amusing manner about his life experiences. This well-known flamboyant homosexual appears at each of Thompson’s séances and (like the main spirit personality that appears) speaks in a slow measured way giving the fraudulent medium time to think when responding to sitters. His life was well documented by means of a book he wrote and public performances and interviews he did where his distinctive personality was on show to study and work out how to impersonate. He is relatively easy to impersonate without tripping up by only revealing verifiable specific details of his life learned by reading the book that he wrote and mimicking his way of talking by studying the public interviews and performances he gave.

Because I don’t have a strong confirmation bias I am free to consider alternate explanations for things I observe at séances like a reason to explain a ‘spirit’ speaking in a slow drawl that sounds contrived and unnatural that blind believers wouldn’t consider. It also helps if you are perceptive a quality I was born with as much as I have honed through my own efforts. Exploring alternate possibilities this way also means that I can appreciate the ingenious way in which the problem of a fraudulent medium needing time to think was handled by inventing a spirit personality that talks with an unnatural sounding drawl that sounds contrived. I can also equally appreciate the shrewdness shown by the fraudulent medium by choosing to impersonate a well-known flamboyant homosexual person that spoke in a slow manner and had a distinctive personality that is easy to impersonate by studying the book he wrote and interviews and stage performances that he did.

The majority of people that attend séances are believers with a pre-existing belief system (confirmation bias) that mediums can communicate with the spirit world during séances. Such people don’t consider alternate explanations the way that I do because they ‘know’ that they are listening to a ‘spirit’ from the afterlife.

You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

Click to expand...

Unlike the séances conducted by medium David Thompson where the 'spirit' talks with an unnatural drawl or the séances conducted by medium Kai Muegge where the 'spirit' fails to reveal any information about his life on earth and instead acts as a master of ceremonies for a series of physical phenomena, at the séance I went to conducted by medium Tom Morris I didn’t detect evidence of using any deception or avoidance strategies. I admit however that I could be wrong. I heard spirit personalities speaking like they would have spoken while on earth including expressing emotions and showing the sort of idiosyncrasies and personality quirks that humans typically have that we retain on transitioning to the spirit world.

How affected was my thinking both during and after the séance by a pre-existing belief system (confirmation bias)? All of us have pre-existing beliefs and expectations when dealing with new situations and it's impossible to completely avoid these influencing the way that you interpret something as unfamiliar and difficult to accurately and objectively assess as the genuineness of mediums and séances. I arrived at the séance believing in the afterlife but not strongly and I was aware that not all mediums and séances are what they claim to be. I needed a good deal of convincing to conclude that the séance was genuine. I left the séance very sceptical believing it to be quite unconvincing and I remained so until I began to piece together all of the different elements I mentioned above that caused me to change my mind and conclude that it was most likely genuine.

If I am wrong in my conclusion that the séance I attended conducted by medium Tom Morris was most likely (using words like 'most likely' is about as definite as I can truthfully be) genuine then I'd be interested in someone explaining how the levitation and complex acrobatics involving the table and chair are done using trickery at every séance without ever making a mistake. Recently someone that had been to Montcabirol in France where the medium and his assistant live and invite afterlife researchers to visit confirmed that two tables (instead of a trumpet and table that I witnessed) are sometimes used and he also indicated that the complex acrobatics they perform varies as well lending more support to my conclusion that the acrobatic phenomena involving levitation was orchestrated from the spirit dimension.

As well as the impossibility of the acrobatics in my opinion being able to be done by trickery the factor that most influenced me to conclude that the séance was genuine was John Sloane trying to coax someone in the back row (where I was) to speak up and showing palpable disappointment in his voice when he failed. My intuition, which I trust more than my ego, strongly told me that it was me that he was trying to coax into speaking up and on realising this I concluded that the séance was genuine. Such an innocent subtle incident significant to only one person (me) at the séance would not have happened had it been the medium impersonating John Sloane doing this. Readers will have to trust me on this point. I can’t even point you to the audio of the séance I attended so you could listen to this incident (which happened at the very end of the séance) because it was edited out due to it presumably being thought to be unimportant when the audio was prepared to be made available for download on the internet. For me (and only me) it was highly significant and this small subtle innocent incident even more than the impressive physical phenomena led me to conclude that the séance was genuine.

Am I certain that the séance was genuine? Because of the way that séances are conducted with fraud very difficult to detect and the uncertain nature of what they purport to demonstrate as well as the dark side of human nature there are no sure things when it comes to séances. You can never be 100% certain about mediums and séances because you are forced to make educated guesses. I’m about as certain as one can be about such an experience and I concede that I could be wrong.

*****************************************​

Summary Conclusions Regarding Mediums and Séances

I give little weight to séances conducted for money these days as evidence for an afterlife but I do give weight to some mediums of the past because of the quality of the information revealed and because the medium was thoroughly investigated e.g. medium Emily French who was investigated by lawyer Edward Randall over a number of years. In his book ‘The French Connection’ Randall outlines how he investigated Emily French and why he concluded that she was genuine and his methods were thorough and his reasons for coming to his conclusions sound. The quality of the information that comes through in séances is also an important factor in determining whether the medium is likely genuine. In the case of Jane Roberts I came to the conclusion that she was genuine because of the sheer volume and more importantly the profoundness of the concepts that the spirit personality Seth revealed. The idea that Roberts could have made up the sort of profound concepts that came out while she was in trance often in front of numerous sitters solely for the purpose of benefitting financially is patently ridiculous.

Séances for me aren’t entertainment. I find them demanding requiring me to use all of my powers (reasoning and intuitive) to try to determine if a medium is genuine and I no longer want to do the work that I feel is necessary to come to an informed conclusion given that you can never be 100% certain because of the way that séances are conducted in the dark. Total certainty or something near to it would require something extraordinary such as a deceased loved one appearing in good red light who is clearly visible to all sitters for at least several minutes and who discloses highly personal information not obtainable through any other means which is known only by the person receiving it and the loved one whose spirit appears. Even if that were to happen it would only be meaningful to the individual and the sitters that witnessed it but it would make little difference to a sceptical public.

A medium ghoulishly taking advantage of a person’s emotional vulnerability due to grieving or missing a loved one that attends a séance hoping for contact and becomes emotional when he/she hears the medium impersonating the loved one believing the voice is the spirit of the loved one because the ‘spirit’ reveals personal information that the medium got from the internet is not proof of survival. Do I believe that there are mediums that would stoop to doing such reprehensible things? I’m certain there are and that they don’t feel the slightest guilt when they do it. There is a thriving little cottage industry of mediums with most but not necessarily all being clever frauds without a shred of conscience making a living taking money from people wanting a kind of proof for the afterlife and survival that I’m not convinced we are meant to have.

I doubt that I'll go to any more séances (I wouldn't be allowed to anyway after the opinions I've expressed here) because I believe that there is far better evidence for an afterlife than the sort of séances you typically see these days the majority of which remind me of sideshows at a carnival and shows performed by professional magicians except that magicians are honest enough to admit that they are illusionists. They aren't in my opinion worth the time, money and effort involved when you can’t be 100% certain or even close to it that they are what they are purported to be.

Most but not all people that attend séances have a pre-existing belief system (confirmation bias) supporting mediums and séances and they interpret the experience through the filter of this belief system and ‘see’ what they want to and expect to see. They leave the séance believing that they witnessed contact with the spirit dimension and confirmation of the afterlife. People who are dedicated to reality on the other hand consider alternate explanations for what they witnessed and in my experience the more one does this the less certain one becomes. This is a normal part of getting to truth.

One example of this is the second séance that I attended conducted by medium Kai Muegge. The more I thought carefully about it the more I realised that my initial impressions were wrong. Since the initial favourable impressions that I wrote soon after attending the séance I’ve worked out ways of doing every one of the phenomena I witnessed by means of trickery. I’ve also worked out explanations for things such as the abnormally relaxed manner of the medium prior to the séance (necessary if you are going to pull off a series of illusions where a slip up could see you exposed) and the need for going away to do his breathing technique. As a result I now believe that what I saw that night was a series of clever illusions some of which were performed by an accomplice who gives the impression of being sweet and innocent making the whole charade even more reprehensible.

No wonder the prominent medium David Thompson that I referred to earlier in my discussion emphasises the critical importance of avoiding ‘negative thoughts’! The unstated meaning here is don’t think because if you think carefully and are perceptive and notice inconsistencies like other perceptive people that have attended David Thompson’s séances have noticed and you publicly communicate your doubts about the authenticity of your séance experience my income stream could be jeopardised! You must not think negative thoughts of the sort 'could the spirit personality speaking in a drawl really be the medium wandering around pretending to be a spirit?' or 'is this really what it’s made out to be?’ or ‘is it this or that?’ You must avoid such thoughts because it might ‘lower the vibrations’ and the sensitive spirits will be put off by people who love truth and don’t blindly accept everything that that is presented to them in the dark! This is what you’d expect to hear from a fraudulent medium attempting to influence sitters into suspending their critical faculties to increase his chances of fooling them and it’s an insult to both sitters and the spirit world.

It’s a telling indictment of how easily people can be led that even well-educated intelligent people who attend séances that have strong pre-existing belief systems (confirmation biases) about the existence of the spirit world will readily suspend their critical faculties which are essential for determining truth when they attend séances held in the dark. Anyone dedicated to reality would never do such a thing in a situation that is heavily skewed towards a fraudulent medium being able to successfully perpetrate fraud however this is exactly what many people that attend séances do including people that ought to know better.

Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark, or the man afraid of the light?

― Maurice Freehill​

Click to expand...

Of the six most prominent physical mediums in the world that I know of I'm all but certain that four are outright frauds with one (Gordon Garforth) I'm not sure of (I haven’t heard anything derogatory said about him) and only one, Tom Morris, probably genuine for reasons I outlined earlier (however I can’t be 100% certain of that). Can I prove that four of them are frauds? There's only one way to prove it conclusively and that's by filming their séances using an infra-red camera harmless to ectoplasm and only one of them (Gary Mannion) has been filmed this way and he was proven to be fraudulent.

Since attending my second séance I've worked out how the medium Kai Muegge did the tricks I witnessed but because of the stringent security measures that he and his accomplice (his wife) take before séances to screen for cameras, torches etc. he’s unlikely to be exposed unless he or his accomplice make a major mistake. One of the four mediums I believe to be fraudulent, Warren Caylor, was recently caught trying to escape his tightly bound plastic ties and it's patently obvious from things he has said and written and videos he's posted of himself producing obviously phony 'ectoplasm' from his mouth and nostrils (clearly pieces of toilet paper, a piece of rope, a piece of cloth material etc.) that he is an inept fraud. I’m not going to waste time going into detail as to why I’ve concluded that he’s a phony. Anyone that can't see that Warren Caylor is a fraud deserves to be fleeced of his/her money. The remaining medium David Thompson is extremely careful to avoid exposure as a fraud. He is unlikely to ever be exposed because he goes to great lengths to weed out sceptics using stringent security measures to guard against a passive infra-red camera harmless to ectoplasm being snuck into one his séances that could expose him as a fraud. I’m all but certain that David Thompson is a fraud yet I hear him being lauded by people that hold up his mediumship as proof of an afterlife. It is nothing of the sort.

As well as the arguments I put forward earlier indicating that I believe that David Thompson is a fraud I could outline a long list of legitimate concerns brought up by people that have attended his séances in the past that point to him being a fraud. One of the arguments I raised earlier in relation to suspicions about David Thompson being a fraud was that I believe that the main ‘spirit personality’ that appears at each of his séances who speaks with an unnatural contrived drawl or slow speech pattern is actually the medium impersonating the spirit. The unnatural drawl or slow speech pattern was deliberately invented by David Thompson to give him the extra split second he needs to think and avoid tripping himself up when responding to sitters’ questions and also to avoid frequent pauses before answering a question which happens when someone is speaking deceptively. Despite this because he is only human David Thompson has slipped up on occasions when responding to sitters' questions in séances while impersonating his spirit personality William who talks with a drawl.

Is there any proof that it’s David Thompson impersonating the 'spirit' who talks with a drawl? There are clues pointing to this. One that comes to mind is that I’ve seen video of David Thompson when he first decided to become a full time medium and he was in the marketing stage of promoting his newly invented product (i.e. his ‘mediumship’) sitting in front of an audience on a stage in a well-lit large auditorium at a Mind Body Spirit Festival 'channelling' the spirit who talks with a drawl. The video shows David Thompson speaking in the same contrived artificial drawl that the ‘spirit’ that appears at every one of his séances talks in. I’ve also seen video of David Thompson speaking this way in a smaller well-lit room in front of an audience yet in his séances we are asked to believe that David Thompson is bound and gagged while a ‘spirit’ is walking around in the dark covered in ectoplasm who speaks with the same drawl and voice as David Thompson has done in public.

I’ve never heard anything of significance revealed by either the main ‘spirit personality’ William or any of the other ‘spirits’ that have appeared at séances conducted by David Thompson. Most of the replies to questions by sitters that I’ve heard in audio of séances have been safe generic responses-brief and lacking detail that could result in the medium tripping himself up while impersonating spirits. I’ve also never heard anything revealed by any of the ‘spirits’ that is proof of survival. One would expect that if the ‘spirits’ were genuine they would willingly reveal personal details about their past lives as proof of survival however in the rare instances when an obscure detail about a ‘spirit’s’ past life on earth has been offered that was checkable and verifiable it turned out to be fictitious e.g. the birth and death details about William the main ‘spirit personality’ that appears at all of David Thompson’s séances. Mistakes like the ‘spirit’ of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle claiming to have published a book that the real Arthur Conan Doyle didn’t publish are the kind of mistake that a fraudulent medium being human and subject to human error would occasionally make while impersonating the spirit of a famous deceased person & not remembering details of the past life correctly. A sitter at one of the séances felt the foot of William the main ‘spirit personality’ that shows up at each of David Thompson’s séances pressing on his toes while he was wearing only socks and he noted that the ‘spirit’ appeared to be wearing trainers like the trainers that the medium happened to be wearing.

When clues like the above that point to the medium being a fraud are brought up people blinded by the need to believe dismiss or downplay their importance by arguing that they don’t categorically prove fraud. An example of this is Victor Zammit who responds to critics of David Thompson by using phrases like ‘it doesn’t matter’ when such clues are brought up or by personally attacking anyone that points them out as if he was still a lawyer defending his client. While it’s true that no individual piece of evidence is enough to categorically prove fraud when the evidence is looked at as a whole it points to the medium being a fraud. Being human and therefore prone to human error a fraudulent medium who conducts séances over a number of years will inevitably make mistakes of a type that a genuine medium wouldn’t make and as the number of these mistakes accumulate over time an astute person will be able to deduce that the medium is a fraud. The average person that attends séances with a strong pre-existing belief system (confirmation bias) in support of mediums and the afterlife has neither the time, the mindset nor the opportunity to look at such evidence as a whole and the medium relies on this to keep getting away with fraud.

I’ve seen David Thompson accuse people on a forum of being cruel in response to members discussing evidence indicating that his mediumship might not be genuine. A genuine medium would not feel threatened by such discussion and allow his mediumship to stand on its own as proof of his authenticity but a fraudulent medium would see it as ‘cruel’ because it shines the spotlight on his mediumship and reminds him of the ever present threat of exposure.

Is it cruel to raise legitimate concerns on a public forum that a medium may be a fraud duping people of their money? It isn't cruel if it is done objectively presenting facts and done without a spirit of malice with the aim being to determine truth. It is a normal way of determining truth and when people allow themselves to be guilt-tripped into stopping doing it then the only winners are fraudulent mediums. Because fraudulent mediums are sociopaths they don't see what they do from the perspective of the people that they deceive. In the eyes of fraudulent mediums the people that they deceive are a means to an end with the means being deception and the end being financial gain and a perverted feeing of ego satisfaction and significance from successfully getting away with fraud.

On the forum where the medium accused the members of being cruel, in defence of his mediumship he pointed out that numerous ‘spirits’ have appeared at his séances that have spoken in foreign languages. I can think of ways of doing this with the aid of modern technology and the help of an accomplice and if an ordinary person like me that isn’t an illusionist can think of ways of doing it then I’m sure that a fraudulent medium could as well.

The explosion in technology over the last 30 years means that there are now many more ways available to fraudulent mediums to cheat at séances than there were in the past. One example that comes to mind is the potential use of night vision goggles utilising the very technology that frauds refuse to allow to be used to film séances. A pair of these passed to the fraudulent medium by his accomplice might enable the medium to for instance manipulate a trumpet to bring it up very close to sitters’ faces and the ceiling at speed giving sitters the impression that it must be spirits controlling the trumpet with such precision. There are other potential uses of such technology by a fraudulent medium as well which I won’t go into. Requiring séances to be filmed using thermal imaging cameras would ensure that such technology was not being used to facilitate fraud.

The obvious example of technology enabling fraudulent mediums to cheat in new ways is the explosion in social media where people reveal details about their personal lives on forums, Facebook etc. which a fraudulent medium could use to reveal ‘personal’ information to a sitter in a séance to make it appear that it’s coming from spirit. The medium in question requires ID in advance to be produced by sitters and he directs sitters precisely where to sit. This is necessary if you are a fraud and you plan to reveal 'personal' information to a sitter during a séance gained from checking the internet.

People objectively engaging in discussions on forums where healthy scepticism is permitted is only cruel from a fraudulent medium’s perspective because it provides the public with the information needed to work out if the medium is a fraud and decide not to attend his séances. Without such information largely consisting of anomalies that people have noticed while attending séances people would have no chance of working out which mediums are fraudulent because the conditions under which séances are held are heavily skewed towards enabling dishonest mediums to get away with fraud. No mediums that I’m aware of allow infra-red cameras harmless to ectoplasm to be used to film séances that would settle whether they are genuine or fraudulent.

When people make use of the only method available to them to try to work out whether a medium is genuine or fraudulent accusing them of being cruel for using it and attempting to guilt-trip them into stopping is bordering on obscene. It’s akin to people suspected of committing a crime asking courts to stop being 'cruel' by presenting evidence to determine their guilt or innocence except that the court here is the court of public opinion.

If a medium is genuine then his mediumship will withstand scrutiny. When a medium is genuine then reports by people that attend his séances will be favourable and encourage others to attend his séances. Conversely if people raise anomalies they perceived at a séance and the anomalies keep being reported then people will start to suspect that the medium may be a fraud. To claim that such a process is cruel is an attempt to deny people the only means open to them given the way that séances are conducted, to distinguish between mediums that are fraudulent and ones that are genuine. An example of this is the way I presented my analysis of the séance I attended conducted by medium Tom Morris. During the séance I was sceptical and I left the séance remaining sceptical but after careful analysis I concluded that the medium was most likely genuine for reasons that I outlined. Such scrutiny performs a valuable public service as long as it is objectively presented with the aim of determining truth. There’s nothing cruel about it unless you are a fraud squirming at seeing information presented that helps people to work out that you are a fraud.

When séances are conducted in a way that makes it extremely difficult to detect fraud there are a few options for people to choose from. One is to remain open minded and reserve judgement unless a medium is so inept that it is obvious that he is a fraud. I’m happy to do this particularly if I’ve heard positive things about a medium. In the case of a medium about whom a lot of suspicion exists due to people having expressed concerns about the medium’s genuineness over a long period of time I’m not prepared to suspend judgement until fraud can be proven beyond reasonable doubt. If all people refrained from making judgements unless fraud was proven beyond reasonable doubt then fraudulent mediums all over the world would cheer because unequivocal proof requires filming séances with an infra-red camera harmless to ectoplasm and I know of no medium that allows this.

In a trial each lawyer attempts to convince the jury that his view is correct while the opposing lawyer’s view isn't. The lawyers do this by ignoring, dismissing or downplaying evidence that could lead to losing the case and highlighting evidence that that could lead to winning the case. Because of this adversarial way in which trials are conducted lawyers are neither impartial nor unbiased. Unlike lawyers members of the jury are expected to put aside any biases they might have and remain impartial. Juries are entrusted with the task of determining truth by impartially and objectively considering all of the evidence and alternate possibilities before arriving at a decision. In the court of public opinion when assessing the genuineness of a medium people need to act like juries rather than like lawyers.

An example of this is Victor Zammit who most of the time does a good job of providing evidence for the existence of the afterlife except when it comes to mediums. With respect to mediums he acts like a lawyer instead of a juror promoting mediums both past and present as if there is no doubt as to their authenticity and reporting on phenomena at séances as if it was unquestioningly genuine while ignoring or downplaying any doubts that people have expressed based on anomalies they have noticed at séances etc. When it comes to mediums and séances Victor 'sees' what he wants to see in line with his belief system (confirmation bias). Victor Zammit is not alone in this and it's a primary reason why so many mediums have gotten away with fraud.

Of all evidence for the afterlife mediums and what happens at séances requires the greatest scrutiny before putting it up as proof of an afterlife. The scrutiny requires effort and a forensic mind dedicated to reality because fraudulent mediums can do a convincing enough job of simulating paranormal phenomena to fool all but the most perceptive person. An example of this is the way I wrote a glowing report of the second séance I attended conducted by medium Kai Muegge soon after attending it only to later conclude after carefully analysing it that the medium was a cunning fraud. This is because I did the work necessary to determine what really happened instead of assuming that my initial impressions were correct and then going to other séances to be fooled again. I’ve heard people boast of having attended over 200 séances and I couldn't help thinking that in all likelihood they had been conned over 200 times and weren’t aware of it.

Victor Zammit recently recounted how the 'spirit' of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle appeared at a séance given by the medium David Thompson that I have been discussing. At this séance the ‘spirit’ of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle clarified a point as a result of a question he asked the ‘spirit’. When I listened to audio of the séance I found that the ‘spirit’ claiming to be Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did not have Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's distinctive Scottish accent and claimed to have published a book that he didn’t publish. The voice of Conan Doyle was also contaminated by the voice of the main spirit personality who talks with a drawl that appears at each of the medium’s séances. This suggests that the medium was feeling off-colour on the night and as a result had trouble separating the voices he uses for different ‘spirits’ that appear at his séances.

The logical conclusion that follows from this by an objective person dedicated to reality is that the 'spirit voice' of Conan Doyle was the medium David Thompson impersonating Conan Doyle and doing a pathetically amateurish job of it. The real Arthur Conan Doyle would not have claimed to have published a book that he didn't publish nor would he have lost his accent. We are told again and again that in the afterlife we revert to our physical and mental peak so an excuse that Victor Zammit might use that Conan Doyle had a memory lapse to rationalise the mistake of wrongly claiming that he published the book would not be credible. This is proof that medium David Thompson is a fraud.

As further evidence in support of David Thompson Victor Zammit recently uploaded the following YouTube video recounting an experience that he had at another séance conducted by David Thompson at which the 'spirit' of Harry Houdini appeared. The ‘spirit’ of Harry Houdini can be heard speaking with a pronounced American accent:

In the YouTube video the 'spirit' of Harry Houdini can be heard chatting freely with Victor Zammit and other sitters at the séance and Victor is clearly delighted to have his need to believe satisfied once again at a David Thompson séance. My problem with this is that when dealing with mediums and apparent phenomenon at séances one needs to be coolly objective if truth rather than satisfying your need to believe matters most to you and when it comes to determining the genuineness of mediums Victor Zammit wouldn’t know if his backside was on fire.

When I heard the 'spirit voice' of Harry Houdini being an objective person mindful of avoiding the mistake of being blinded by a need to believe my first response was to see if I could find a recording of the real Harry Houdini’s voice. To my pleasant surprise (and no doubt the disgust of the medium) I discovered that there are recordings of the real Harry Houdini’s voice. These recording were made by Houdini in 1914 on wax cylinders when Houdini was forty years old (twelve years before he died). They were discovered in 1970 and I'm guessing were only made available for the general public to listen to relatively recently.

Harry Houdini was born in Hungary to Jewish parents who immigrated to the US when he was four years old. Houdini’s parents would have spoken to their son in their native language (either Hungarian or Jewish) at home and likewise Harry to them. When Houdini’s parents spoke in English in the home they would have spoken it without an American accent. This meant that despite growing up in New York Harry Houdini never developed a strong American accent like the one displayed by the ‘spirit’ of Houdini that appeared at the séance.

If you listen to the recordings of the real Harry Houdini’s voice in the YouTube links below there is scarcely any American accent discernible and you can hear the influence of Houdini's native language in the way that he pronounces some words. In contrast the ‘spirit voice’ of Harry Houdini that appeared at the David Thompson séance has a strong American accent. The real Harry Houdini's voice is nothing like the voice claiming to be the spirit of Harry Houdini at the David Thompson séance. The logical reason to explain why there is no similarity between the two voices is that David Thompson is a fraud who was impersonating the voice of Harry Houdini based on the erroneous assumption that Houdini must have had a strong American accent because he grew up in New York.

The real Harry Houdini speaking on YouTube with almost no discernible American accent and the influence of his parents' native language clearly evident in the way he pronounces some words:

David Thompson clearly failed to do sufficient research before deciding to impersonate the ‘spirit’ of Harry Houdini at several of his séances. He assumed that Houdini must have had a strong American accent based on Houdini growing up in New York and because several movies about Houdini's life show him speaking with an American accent. Most movies depicting Harry Houdini speaking with an American accent were made before the recordings of Houdini's voice were discovered. As for movies made after the recordings were discovered Houdini's true accent was too hard for the actors playing Houdini to reproduce accurately based on the limited number of recordings discovered. The directors also believed that the movies would have more appeal to the American public if Houdini spoke with an American accent. The fact that the 'spirit voice' of Harry Houdini at séances conducted by David Thompson has a strong American accent while the real Houdini had no such accent proves that medium David Thompson is a fraud.

When David Thompson decided that the ‘spirit’ of Harry Houdini would appear at several of his séances he did not anticipate that recordings of Houdini’s voice might become available on YouTube for people to compare the ‘spirit’ voice to the real Harry Houdini's voice. David Thompson's greatest supporter Victor Zammit also did not bother to check that such recordings existed before uploading his YouTube video. Being a true believer Victor ‘knows’ that it’s the spirit voice of Harry Houdini without having to do the sort of checks that I have done. Victor Zammit uploaded the YouTube video as proof of the powers of David Thompson and of the existence of the spirit world. It is nothing of the sort. It is unambiguous proof that medium David Thompson is a fraud.

HERE IS A CHALLENGE FOR THAT FIFTH RATE ALLEGED MAGICIAN WHO DEFAMED DAVID THOMSPSON:

Specifically identify WHAT ASPECT of David Thompson mediumship’s was fraudulent.

― Victor Zammit​

Click to expand...

What aspect of David Thompson's mediumship is fraudulent? ALL OF DAVID THOMPSON'S MEDIUMSHIP IS FRAUDULENT.

The evidence that I have presented that David Thompson was impersonating the 'spirit voices' of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini on its own is enough for a jury to find him guilty of fraud. Comparing audio of the voices of the real Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini to the voices of the ‘spirits’ in the séances it is obvious to anyone that isn’t suffering from true believer syndrome, blinded by a need to believe or stupid that the 'spirit' voices were the medium impersonating Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini. In the case of Harry Houdini the public can listen to the two voices for themselves on YouTube and see that the fraud is blatant and beyond the reasonable doubt that a jury requires to arrive at a guilty verdict.

David Thompson has not been defamed by James Randi as Victor Zammit claims. James Randi is the one who has been defamed by Victor Zammit. If a jury was to hear all of the evidence I have outlined in my post a verdict that David Thompson is guilty of being a fraudulent medium would be guaranteed. If this happened then Victor Zammit would be morally if not legally obliged to pay James Randi the $500,000.

The anomalies I have presented are just a few of many anomalies noticed by people that have either attended David Thompson's séances or listened to audio of them that are brought up in forums where evidence for and against the genuineness of a medium is allowed to be discussed without fear of being banned for being ‘negative’. They are precisely the sort of anomalies that one would see in séances conducted by a fraudulent medium.

Victor Zammit has a markedly different view of medium David Thompson to mine because being blinded by his need to believe and suffering from true believer syndrome he believes in psychic phenomena too readily and sees 'wonders' where an objective person dedicated to reality who checks the evidence carefully sees phony wonders produced by a phony medium. Victor ‘knows’ that the voices he heard at the séances were the spirit voices of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini without needing to check them against the real voices of these people. Being a ‘true believer’ he 'sees' and 'hears' what he expects to see and hear (confirmation bias) and he allows himself to be conned in order to satisfy his need to believe.

In his YouTube video Victor Zammit stated that he had witnessed around 100 'reunions' at séances conducted by David Thompson. When considering this ‘evidence’ of the powers of the medium and ‘proof’ of the spirit world I asked myself a crucially important question. Would I speak up in a séance and challenge the authenticity of a ‘spirit’ voice purporting to be a deceased loved one if I had doubts about it being the voice of my loved one? My answer was that I wouldn't speak up because I’d be emotional and uncertain about what was happening. I would keep any doubts or reservations to myself until I had a chance to think about it in the privacy of my own home.

Most people, particularly the kind that attend séances who typically believe that spirits appear at séances, would not challenge the authenticity of a voice purporting to be a loved one in an unfamiliar situation like a séance while sitting disorientated in pitch darkness amongst strangers. Upon hearing the purported voice of the deceased loved one most if not all people would experience a range of possible emotions e.g. surprise, shock, confusion, elation etc and would go with the flow of the séance and decide whether it really was the voice of the deceased loved later at home after the emotions had died down. An intelligent person might take some time analysing what happened before deciding whether it was the voice of the loved one. A gullible person would likely take little time while a person with true believer syndrome would need no time because he would 'know' it was the deceased loved one even when it isn't.

Before his séances David Thompson emphasises the importance of avoiding 'negative thoughts' (e.g. is this really what it's made out to be?) because it might 'lower the vibrations' (or people might realise that they are being conned). People that attend séances tend to be sensitive, polite, civil people respectful of the rights of others. Such people would be mindful of not disrupting the flow and harmonious atmosphere of the séance by challenging the authenticity of the voice they heard. Not wanting to ruin the séance for others over what is only a suspicion they would keep any reservations to themselves and evaluate what happened later in the privacy of their home. If they concluded that the voice they heard was most likely the medium impersonating their loved one the public would not learn of their doubts.

David Thompson's greatest supporter Victor Zammit believes that a sitter not challenging the authenticity of a 'spirit' voice purporting to be the voice of a deceased loved one automatically means that a genuine reunion occurred. An objective person primarily motivated by a desire for truth would not arrive at such a conclusion. A 'true believer' however like Victor who interprets the séance through the filter of his need to believe and 'sees' what he wants to see concludes that a genuine reunion occurred. There's no need for a 'true believer' like Victor to go through the sort of analytical process that I have here because his primary motivation is satisfying his need to believe rather than determining truth.

Fraudulent mediums are smart enough to know that most people would keep any reservations they had to themselves in an unfamiliar highly disorientating environment like a séance on hearing a voice purporting to be a loved one. If anyone did speak up and challenge the authenticity of the 'spirit' the medium would have a contingency plan ready e.g. the 'spirit' going back to the spirit dimension due to the 'negative thoughts' of the sitter resulting in ‘lowering the vibrations’.

David Thompson also claims to be able communicate with the spirit of deceased loved ones of sitters at his séances clairvoyantly in the manner of psychic John Edwards. To do this Thompson uses a well-known ‘fishing’ technique employed by many phony psychics to claim this by sending out feelers in the form of questions & vague statements about the 'spirit person' coming through until he gets a positive response from a sitter. Doris Stokes is someone that comes to mind here. I believe that she used this technique of fishing for a response from people in the audience until someone in the audience reacted in an emotional manner. Once she received the response it was easy to get more responses from the person making it appear that it was the deceased loved one coming through.

This fishing technique can be employed a lot more effectively if the medium knows who will be attending the séance. The medium requires all people that want to attend his séances to provide photo ID and fill out a questionnaire. This allows him to look them up on the internet and find out information that will help him employ the fishing technique with greater chance of success by using what he found to convince a sitter that the loved one was coming through in spirit.

The medium does not allow anyone that has criticised him or any other medium on the internet to attend his séances and you can be certain that he checks each sitter for this before accepting an application to attend one of his séances. A fraudulent medium would choose which sitter’s loved one he was going to impersonate using information supplied by people applying to attend his séances to research them on the internet and use what he finds to choose the best sitter for the ‘reunion’ to maximise his chances of getting away with impersonating the spirit voice of a loved one or to claim clairvoyant communication with one.

The true-believer syndrome is the greatest thing phony mediums have going for them.

Did Victor Zammit who has witnessed around ‘100 reunions’ go through the sort of analytical process that I have before declaring the 'reunions' to be proof of the spirit world and the fantastic powers of the medium? The analysis that I have undertaken, which is the same sort of analysis that juries undertake examining evidence to arrive at truth, takes time and effort but it must be done if arriving at truth is the objective For true believers like Victor there is no need to do such analysis and question reunions as credible evidence the way that I have because his unconscious objective is to satisfy his need to believe and confirm his belief system. Unlike Victor people who care more about truth than confirming their belief system recognise that things are not necessarily what they superficially appear where mediums and séances are concerned. People motivated by a desire for truth analyse what occurred carefully the way that I have rather than automatically seeing what they want to see in line with their belief system.

For reunions to be credible evidence the people who experienced a ‘reunion’ would need to be followed up after having had time to objectively evaluate their experience. Such people are not followed up and the public doesn’t get a chance to judge how gullible they are or whether they continued to believe that they had a reunion with a deceased loved one after having had time to objectively assess the experience away from the disorientating and stressful séance situation.

What happens at séances is notoriously unreliable and needs to be carefully examined before being presented as credible evidence for an afterlife. Victor Zammit does a good job of presenting other evidence for the afterlife but not when it comes to mediums and séances. The public deserves better than ‘spirit voices’ of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini appearing at medium David Thompson's séances that bear no resemblance to the voices of the real persons when they lived on earth being promoted as proof of the spirit world. The same goes for ‘reunions’ that are promoted as proof of the spirit world on the basis of sitters not speaking up in séances and challenging the authenticity of the supposed voices of loved ones. The same applies to supposed clairvoyant communication between the medium and deceased loved ones of sitters which could have been a result of research that the medium did on sitters by using information supplied by sitters when they applied to attend the séance. The hyperbolic way in which Victor Zammit promotes medium David Thompson is reminiscent of a spruiker at sideshow alley at a carnival making exaggerated claims to entice people into a tent. Spokespeople for the afterlife need to act like juries not lawyers when it comes to analysing evidence and deciding whether it is credible.

Pray look better, Sir... those things yonder are no giants, but windmills.

― Miguel De Cervantes,
1547-1616, Spanish Novelist, Dramatist, Poet​

Click to expand...

Determining whether a medium like David Thompson is genuine or a fraud requires intellectual integrity and spending the time and making the considerable effort necessary checking all of the evidence carefully to arrive at what is most likely the truth. For Victor Zammit and many others like him this is unnecessary. For a true believer like Victor the arguments that I have raised don’t matter because truth is not the true objective. When the unconscious objective is satisfying one’s need to believe the true believer keeps on repeating 'it doesn't matter' or comes up with rationalisations to explain away anomalies that contradict or threaten his belief system.

Another way of making this point is the quote below taken from the forward to the book 'The Psychic Mafia' by M Lamar Keene. I've come to realise that no matter how much evidence I provide here to show Victor Zammit that David Thompson is a fraud Victor would refuse to believe it because Victor has the same mindset as the sitters in the quote below.

A portrayal of this very attitude can be found in the unusual opera, The Medium, by Gian-Carlo Menotti. The central character is a fake medium, Madame Flora, who one day tells her sitters that all the wonderful phenomena she has produced were fraudulent. And the result of this confession? The sitters refuse to believe her!

Victor Zammit has invested too much time, money and energy satisfying his need to believe by going to David Thompson séances to face the unpleasant and humbling reality that he has allowed himself to be conned because he failed to examine the evidence the way that juries do to determine truth. Any evidence that I present here that conflicts with Victor’s belief system (confirmation bias) will be dismissed by Victor by saying ‘it doesn’t matter’ or rationalised away by coming up with an excuse that allows him to maintain his belief system because satisfying his need to believe matters more to him than determining truth. Realising and accepting that he has been conned will have to wait until Victor crosses over and sees his life review. Nevertheless I’ll persist and give more evidence for David Thompson being a fraud for the benefit of the readers of my post who care more about truth than satisfying their need to believe.

David Thompson requires people applying to attend one of his séances to furnish photo ID and fill out a form providing him with information about them and he assigns each sitter a specific seat in the séance room. The information on the form can be used by the medium to find out personal things about the sitters (from social media etc.) before the séance which the medium posing as a spirit can then disclose during the séance to give the impression that it is coming from the spirit world. Assigning where each person sits in the room enables the medium while impersonating a spirit to interact with specific people in a more personal way using information gained from researching them to make it appear that the 'spirit' knows them. David Thompson also requires sitters to agree in writing not to post negative comments about his séances on forums etc. Any person that applies to attend one of his séances that is found to have criticised any medium is barred from his séances. If you are fraud you can’t allow people with critical minds that aren’t afraid to point out anomalies they might notice to attend one of your séances. Such people might ‘lower the vibrations’ or work out that you are a fraud and communicate this to others. A genuine medium would not do such things but a fraudulent medium would in order to increase his chances of successfully getting away with fraud.

The main ‘spirit personality’ that appears at each of David Thompson's séances and talks with a drawl claimed to have been born in London in 1830 and died in 1897. When someone did a check of the birth and death records in the UK there was no record of a person of that name that was born and died in the years claimed. When David Thompson cunningly subsequently changed the name of the spirit personality to coincide with a slightly different name in the records of someone who lived at a different time the response by Victor Zammit was ‘it doesn’t matter’. It does matter. It matters because it indicates that the spirit personality's name, birth and death details were made up by the not too bright medium without his anticipating that anyone would check the records. Then on discovering that someone had checked the records, the medium in an attempt to cover his tracks, looked up the records and changed the name of his concocted spirit personality to coincide with the name in the records closest to his made up name. This is precisely the sort of thing a fraud would do.

One of the ‘spirits’ that regularly appears at David Thompson’s séances is Louis Armstrong. The ‘spirit’ plays a harmonica yet there is no record of Louis Armstrong ever having played the harmonica in front of audiences during his life on earth. Another musician played the harmonica in the song 'What a Wonderful World'. Why would the ‘spirit’ of Louis Armstrong choose not to play the musical instrument that helped make him famous to confirm that he really is the spirit of Louis Armstrong? David Thompson’s UK circle leader has admitted that David Thompson knows how to play the harmonica so the logical explanation is that it is David Thompson impersonating the spirit of Louis Armstrong that plays the harmonica during his séances. Why does the ‘spirit’ of Louis Armstrong not engage in conversation with sitters to prove that it really is Louis Armstrong? The logical explanation is that David Thompson judged that attempting to mimic Armstrong's distinctive raspy voice without ever slipping up while conversing with sitters would be too difficult and risky. When another fraudulent medium tried doing it he broke into a coughing fit during one of his séances resulting in the fraud being exposed.

If I pointed out that a female spirit has only appeared at David Thompson's séances as a low hoarse voice not recognisable as female would this matter to his greatest supporter Victor Zammit? To a man more interested in upholding his belief system than determining truth and who is blinded by the need to believe it wouldn’t matter. It would matter however to someone for whom truth is primary because it's the safest way for a fraudulent male medium to impersonate a female spirit. Emily French who I later in this debate mentioned as an example of a medium who I believed to be genuine was a frail old woman who was almost deaf yet spirits with booming male voices regularly appeared at her séances and interacted with the sitters.

If I pointed out that on more than one occasion at David Thompson's séances the trumpet that 'spirits' levitate and move around the room at speed has hit sitters would that matter? At one séance the trumpet hit a woman in the chest so hard that she cried out and pulled her hand to her chest (breaking the circle of sitters holding hands) with the trumpet falling to the floor. This resulted in the main spirit personality William that talks with a drawl taking over the séance and abruptly closing it because the medium was ‘injured’ and ‘stuck in trance’. We’ve all heard how light can cause ectoplasm to shoot back into a medium injuring the medium but a trumpet striking a woman and falling to the floor injuring a medium causing him to be 'stuck in trance' is ludicrous! The logical conclusion here is obvious to an objective person for whom truth matters most-the medium miscalculated while moving the trumpet in front of sitters in the dark probably using an extension of some sort. He panicked when he hit the woman and lost the trumpet so he closed the séance using the voice of his concocted 'spirit' personality William that David Thompson impersonates.

If I pointed out that a ‘spirit doctor’ that appeared at a séance conducted by David Thompson told a woman who was dying of cancer that she did not have cancer but two weeks later the woman died of cancer would that matter to David Thompson's greatest supporter Victor Zammit? Would it matter that the same ‘spirit doctor’ appeared at another séance and told a woman who'd had a mastectomy that it was unnecessary for her to have had the breast removed? The ‘spirit’ doctor also apparently claimed that there was a direct link between Down’s syndrome, which is a genetic defect caused by an extra chromosome, and AIDS, which is an illness caused by a virus. If a real qualified human doctor gave such advice to his patients he would be sued for malpractice and struck off the medical register due to being dangerously incompetent.

David Thompson also announced at his website that he was able to channel a 'spirit doctor' who was available for ‘private consultations’ for a fee payable to him. That money making venture died a quick death after people heard about the dangerous medical advice the 'spirit doctor' was giving out at David Thompson's séances. The reason why the 'spirit doctor' gave out such dangerous advice is obvious to anyone who isn't blinded by the need to believe namely that David Thompson has no medical training and he didn't anticipate the risks of impersonating a 'spirit doctor' when you have no medical expertise.

After people began to hear of the irresponsible negligent medical advice being offered by the ‘spirit doctor’ (which no real doctor would give to patients) on forums where anomalies and inconsistences with respect to mediums are allowed to be discussed the 'spirit doctor' suddenly stopped appearing at David Thompson's séances. Funny about that! For someone like Victor Zammit with true believer syndrome who is blinded by the need to believe such things don’t matter. For people that are not blinded by the need to believe it is evidence that the medium has no respect for the people that attend his séances and is a reprehensible fraud.

Besides the 'private consultations' available from the 'spirit doctor' at his website another money making scheme thought up by David Thompson was selling audio of his séances on the internet. This disappeared quickly when no-one wanted to pay for audio of his fraudulent drivel. The whole thing was always a marketing exercise by David Thompson the purpose of which was to dupe gullible people with a need to believe in survival and the spirit world out of their money. It's no different to what occurred at Camp Chesterfield in 1960 in America where fraudulent mediums were raking in over a million dollars a year by duping people until someone snuck an infra-red camera into one of the séances and it exposed the fraud that was occurring. The only difference here is that the fraudulent medium running this scam is able to utilise the huge advances in modern technology since 1960 as an aid to produce his phony wonders.

Why doesn’t it matter to Victor Zammit when anomalies and inconsistencies like the ones I have mentioned (there are others that I could have included as well all) are brought up? The obvious conclusion is that Victor has a strong need to believe and he isn't very particular about how he satisfies it. Like Victor I have a need to believe but unlike him I will not accept evidence that doesn’t stand up under scrutiny using the method that juries use in trials to determine truth. If I accept evidence but later when I look more closely I realise that I was wrong I admit that I was wrong and change my views accordingly. It's the only sound objective approach I know of to determine whether there's an afterlife which is why it’s used around the world by juries in trials to determine truth.

Readers can see how my views have changed with respect to some mediums (e.g. Kai Muegge and Leslie Flint) as a result of looking at evidence more closely and coming across new evidence that I hadn’t looked at earlier. The more time and effort I’ve spent carefully examining the evidence the more confident I’ve become of the existence of the afterlife but I’ve also come to realise that much of what people accept as proof, particularly with respect to mediums, is not credible when looked at using the method that juries use in trials to determine truth. If satisfying your need to believe is your main objective then you'll 'see' what you expect to see at séances but when people do this integrity is lacking and the conclusions they come to unsound. Fraudulent mediums know that most people who go to their séances don't have the time to analyse the phenomenon closely and lack the perceptivity to see the flaws in it so frauds are rarely exposed.

When I discovered that the real Harry Houdini had no discernible American accent but the ‘spirit voice’ of Houdini at David Thompson's séances had a strong American accent the logical conclusion was that David Thompson was impersonating Houdini’s voice after assuming that Houdini must have had a strong American accent because he grew up in America. When such proof of fraud is brought up Victor Zammit puts on his lawyer's wig and gown and ignores or dismisses it. Why? The most likely reason (I can think of others) is because he has a need to believe that must be satisfied even if it means allowing a sociopathic fraudulent medium to play him for a fool. When I went to my second séance my need to believe was satisfied temporarily by medium Kai Muegge but my stronger need for truth would not allow me to accept what superficially appeared to happen until I forensically examined the experience the way that juries do in trials. When I did this I realised that I'd been conned.

Trust me I’m a lawyer.

Click to expand...

Sorry but lawyers aren’t trustable. Lawyers spend their working lives trying to convince juries that their slanted biased view of the evidence is correct in order to convince juries that their clients did not commit the crimes that they have been accused of. An example of this is O J Simpson who brutally murdered his former wife and her partner in a narcissistic jealous rage and his lawyer presented the evidence in a clever way that resulted in his view of the truth being believed by a gullible jury. Police did not reopen the investigation after Simpson was found not guilty because it was obvious that Simpson had committed the murders.

Someone with integrity and a love of truth above all else who refused to allow himself to be blinded by the need to believe would not dismiss or rationalise away inconsistencies and anomalies like those that I have brought up (and there are more that I could have included) because they are the sort of inconsistencies and anomalies that one would typically see when a medium is a fraud. On the other hand a person with true believer syndrome like David Thompson's greatest supporter Victor Zammit whose relationship to the medium is a state of thrall would say ‘it doesn’t matter’ or come up with rationalisations for the inconsistencies and anomalies in order to protect his belief system (confirmation bias).

Victor Zammit together with his wife have spent a great deal of time and money attending David Thompson's séances in order to satisfy their need to believe so each time evidence pointing to David Thompson being a fraud is brought up they ignore or dismiss it. It’s a good arrangement for both parties. David Thompson plays them for fools and they are happy and grateful to him for satisfying their need to believe and they pay him well for doing this.

If you identify with a mental position, then if you are wrong, your mind-based sense of self is seriously threatened with annihilation. So you as the ego cannot afford to be wrong. To be wrong is to die.

― Eckhart Tolle​

Click to expand...

It would be highly uncomfortable and embarrassing to say the least to have to face and admit the possibility that you and your spouse had willingly allowed yourselves to be conned in order to satisfy a need that you both had. It takes two parties to participate in the duet dance of deception that occurs when a medium is fraudulent. The sitter agrees not to look too closely at the proceedings and say ‘it doesn’t matter’ when others point out inconsistencies and anomalies while the fraudulent medium gets paid for satisfying the sitter's need to believe. The unspoken contract that both parties agree to here only requires that the deception is plausible provided that no-one looks at it too closely. When anyone does look at it closely the way that I and others have and find evidence for deception in the form of anomalies and inconsistencies like those I've mentioned the parties that agreed to be deceived keep saying ‘it doesn’t matter’ or come up with rationalisations to explain them away.

Failing to acknowledge anomalies and inconsistencies in relation to medium David Thompson's séances like those that I’ve outlined (and there are more that I could have included) is the sort of thing a lawyer does to persuade a jury (the public) that his client (the medium) is what he claims to be. Lawyers aren’t interested in truth. A defence lawyer presents evidence in support of his client while downplaying evidence (e.g. saying ‘it doesn’t matter’) that makes his client look guilty. I recently watched a Queen’s Counsel (QC) say that it’s an unspoken rule among lawyers that they never ask a client if he’s guilty. This is why juries rather than lawyers are entrusted with determining truth.

Downplaying or overlooking anything that doesn’t fit in with one’s existing belief system is also what people with true believer syndrome do at séances to satisfy their need to believe and confirm their belief system (confirmation bias). Such people ‘see’ what they expect to see at séances in line with their belief system and anyone that points out anomalies that they have failed to acknowledge is labelled as ‘negative’ or worse depending on how threatened, angry (or whatever) the person feels by having his belief system challenged.

In the court of public opinion when assessing the genuineness of a medium the method that juries use is the one that needs to be employed if truth is the objective. To determine truth all evidence needs to be acknowledged and examined coolly, impartially and objectively and alternate possibilities need to be considered.

A public forum discussing mediumship is not a court of law where proof beyond reasonable doubt is required because a guilty verdict could result in a jail sentence. We are dealing here with a social community and a ritual (a séance) with the rules being skewed in favour of frauds getting away with behaving unethically but not criminally. Countless mediums have got away with fraud all over the world for over 150 years because they have been allowed to dictate how séances are conducted to suit their self-serving agendas and nothing is likely to change while people passively accept the status quo.

A lesser standard of proof than one required in a criminal court is appropriate for judging the genuineness of mediums. The civil standard requires only that sufficient evidence exists that a medium is most likely fraudulent for a judgement that the medium is a fraud to be justified. In relation to medium David Thompson I have chosen to make a judgement after carefully examining the considerable evidence available and my judgement is that David Thompson is a fraudulent medium. Could I be wrong? If my place in the spirit world depended on making an accurate judgement based on the evidence available I wouldn’t hesitate to say that the medium is a fraud.

*****************************************​

It appears that medium David Thompson has recently read my views and has become enraged as a result and launched an attack on one of the forums (http://www.spiritualismlink.com/) that he blames for providing me with information that helped me to form the views I’ve expressed on this computer forum. His nasty response shows that he believes that forums where healthy scepticism is permitted and people are free to discuss anomalies with respect to his ‘mediumship’ should be shamed and intimidated into stopping discussions that might lead people to conclude that he is a fraud.

For a person that claims that the spirit world uses him as a channel to tell the world that it exists he is a particularly nasty piece of work making one wonder why spirits would use someone with his dubious character to come through. Perhaps it’s because the spirit world isn’t using him at all the way that he claims it is. David Thompson has asked for others to support him in railing against the forum where I learned some of the anomalies with respect to his ‘mediumship’ that led me to conclude that he is a fraud.

Note here that there is another forum (http://spiritualistchatroom.forumotion.com/login) where I also gained a lot of information that led me to conclude that he is a fraud. Why doesn’t he attack it as well? Perhaps it’s because to view the discussions on that forum you would need to join the forum and he knows that casual members of the public can’t read the discussions concerning his ‘mediumship’. The people that run that forum also wouldn’t permit him to express his vitriolic attacks directed at anyone that questioned the genuineness of his ‘mediumship’ for long without letting him know what they thought of him in no uncertain terms so he has limited his attacks to what he sees as the softer target.

David Thompson has stated on several occasions that he’s not here to live up to other peoples’ expectations or satisfy other peoples’ needs. This is understandable because fraudulent mediums are sociopaths with a defective conscience living solely to satisfy their own needs at the expense of the people that they deceive. Despite openly saying that he is not here to satisfy others’ needs David Thompson wants others to help him satisfy his need for retribution against the forum that he blames for providing me with information that led me to conclude that he is a fraud. Why should people care about David Thompson's needs when David Thompson openly states that he doesn’t care about others' needs? Given that David Thompson has stated that he is not here to live up to others’ expectations or satisfy others’ needs one would assume that this includes the expectations and needs of the people that attend his séances expecting to experience genuine interaction with the spirit dimension.

The two forums I’ve mentioned (as well as several critics that I haven’t mentioned) have been helpful in providing me with information that led me to conclude that David Thompson is a fraud. Such forums and critics perform a valuable service because they allow anomalies that people have noticed at séances to be collated and discussed in order to help determine if a medium is genuine or fraudulent. If such forums didn’t exist frauds would be able to get away with deceiving others much more easily because they won’t permit the only other method of determining if a medium is fraudulent to be used i.e. allowing thermal imaging cameras which are harmless to ectoplasm to be used to film their séances.

David Thompson clearly believes that the public does not have a right to learn about and discuss anomalies which inevitably arise when a medium is a fraud e.g. the anomalies I mentioned earlier about the ‘spirit’ of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who appeared at one of his séances not having his accent and claiming to have published a book that in fact wasn’t published by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the ‘spirit’ of harry Houdini having a pronounced American accent when the real Houdini didn’t. There are a great number of such anomalies with respect to David Thompson's séances and they are exactly the sort of anomalies that one would expect to occur when a medium is a fraud. They are not anomalies that can be explained away by arguing that spirits may have memory lapses and make mistakes just like humans do. We are told that when we pass to the spirit world we revert to the state when we were at our mental and physical peak during our earth lives with all of our mental faculties restored so the anomalies are not due to a form of 'spiritual senility' but rather they are indicative of a medium being a fraud.

Note here that some of the reasons why I’ve concluded that David Thompson is a fraud are ones that I’ve worked out myself that I’ve not seen discussed elsewhere e.g. the reason for the main ‘spirit’ that shows up at his séances having a drawl (a slow speech pattern with prolonged vowels) as a mechanism to give the fraudulent medium extra time to consider a response and avoid tripping himself up or pausing frequently when responding to sitters’ questions at his séances. If David Thompson wants to join this forum and rail against me for posting my views I’ll happily oblige him and provide the public with the extremely long list of anomalies that I deliberately didn’t list because my post on mediums and séances wasn’t meant to be about one particular medium being a fraud.

When a medium is genuine his mediumship will speak for itself and won’t need defending against critics but when a medium is fraudulent critics who discuss anomalies that inevitably arise when he goes about conning people are viewed as enemies. Enemies need to be attacked and David Thompson attempted to do this by posting a barrage of critical posts on one of the forums that he sees as responsible for my concluding that he is a fraud. This is how you would expect a not too bright fraudulent medium to behave after reading my criticism of him.

David Thompson's other method of attack is to attempt to start a new forum and invite people to support him in opposition to the forum that allows discussion of anomalies that might lead people to conclude that he is a fraud. He got no support in this because thinking people understand that forums in which all evidence (including anomalies and inconsistencies with respect to mediums) is allowed to be discussed perform a valuable public service. Such forums provide the information that people need to make a considered judgement using the method that juries use rather than allowing themselves to be manipulated and led down the garden path by a con artist.

Medium David Thompson is a fraud. It isn’t even a close call. There is nothing about his 'mediumship' that has anything to do with the spirit world.

If David Thompson wants to prove that he is genuine the means is available in the form of allowing a thermal imaging camera harmless to ectoplasm to film one of his séances as happened with Gary Mannion. David Thompson allows other electrical devices such as tape recorders to record audio of his séances and even occasionally red light to be used e.g. there is a photo of him in red light supposedly exuding ‘ectoplasm’ from his mouth that looks exactly like a piece of cheesecloth or semi-transparent nylon curtain material hanging from his mouth. Note here that while someone was allowed to take this photo with a camera with no harm to the medium thermal imaging cameras that emit no light and are therefore harmless to ectoplasm are not allowed. On the forum that David Thompson has barraged with posts attacking it he provided a cunning response explaining why genuine mediums cannot allow thermal imaging cameras to be used. It’s a load of unsubstantiated nonsense and the sort of excuse one would expect a fraudulent medium to fabricate to justify not allowing a thermal imaging camera to be used at one of his séances to expose him as a fraud.

Could it be that if such a camera was used then none of the phenomena that normally occurs at his séances would be possible? How could a fraudulent medium probably with the aid of an accomplice free himself of his bonds and walk around the séance room pretending to be various spirits if such a camera was used? Such a device would make fraud impossible so frauds will not allow such cameras to be used at their séances. David Thompson is clearly a fraud and out of all the mediums that I’ve concluded are frauds I believe that he has the most contempt and lack of respect for the public that he cons judging by the arrogant manner I’ve seen him respond to critics.

One piece of good news I can give David Thompson and the other mediums that I have concluded are frauds is that the PM4U forum containing the link to my post on this computer forum will soon close down and then the public link to this debate will no longer be advertised to people discussing evidence for the afterlife. In time people that read my views will forget what I’ve written and the mediums will presumably be able to return to conning people.

Note here that I’m not arguing that all mediums are frauds. There was wonderful phenomena at the séance I attended given by medium Tom Morris that I couldn’t explain away as being done by trickery despite doing my best to do this along with subtle signs I picked up that caused me to conclude that it really was the spirit of John Sloan that came through. I also believe that there have been a number of mediums in the past that have been genuine so I’m not by any means arguing that all mediums are frauds. Each medium needs to be looked at on a case by case basis.

In my view thermal imaging cameras at séances are a pipe dream that is never going to happen. The odd venue like the Arthur Finley College won’t allow séances on its premises unless a camera is allowed but frauds will still be able to find venues that will allow séances to be performed without a camera being used. The problem as I see it is that if such cameras were made compulsory worldwide then many mediums currently practicing would go out of business. As long as there’s good money to be made satisfying gullible peoples’ need to believe there will likely always be mediums willing to give people what they want even if it means using illusions to do it.

I might also add that I'm not entirely certain that if a genuine medium agreed to allow thermal imaging cameras to film his séances that the spirit world would go along with this. I don't believe that we are meant to be absolutely certain of the existence of the spirit world and life after death to the extent of unambiguous proof captured on film for reasons I've stated later in my post. Fraudulent mediums would happily agree with this of course but for very different reasons to mine!

POSTSCRIPT:
David Thompson recently announced that he had decided to ‘retire’ from full-time mediumship and only perform séances twice a year at venues chosen by him where he hasn’t performed previously. This decision came as no surprise to me after he received no support when he attacked the forum (http://www.spiritualismlink.com/) that he blamed for providing me with much of the information that I’ve presented here that proves that David Thompson is a fraudulent medium. Most people recognise that forums where discussion is allowed with respect to anomalies noticed by people at séances are one of the few ways available to determine whether a medium is genuine or a fraud given the way that séances are conducted. Fraudulent mediums understandably hate such forums.

I’m guessing that when David Thompson saw the link to my post on this computer forum which I posted on the PM4U forum and he read this post he became enraged that I had used the evidence that had I obtained from the SpiritualismLink forum together with evidence that I’d obtained from other sources to argue strongly that he is a fraudulent medium. He realised that if enough people read my post and the increasing criticism from various sources with respect to his ‘mediumship’ that his income stream was in jeopardy so he vented his anger against the SpiritualismLink forum. A genuine medium would not have done that.

Because the evidence that I’ve presented here is more than enough for a jury to find David Thompson guilty of being a fraudulent medium as well as the mounting criticism of his ‘mediumship’ from various other sources he decided to lie low to allow enough time for it all to fade from public memory. When he feels the time is right I'm guessing that he will attempt to resurrect his fraudulent mediumship on a full-time basis. As well as citing wanting to spend more time with his son (a reason no-one would argue against but only David Thompson knows if it’s a genuine reason for his decision to retire) David Thompson also cited ‘un-spiritual people' as the other reason for his decision to retire. To the self-centred mind of a sociopathic fraudulent medium like David Thompson people who consider alternate explanations for what happens at his séances are ‘un-spiritual’ while people who unquestioningly go along with what’s presented at his séances are ‘spiritual’ people. In other words gullible people are 'spiritual' while perceptive people are 'un-spiritual'.

It also came as no surprise to see Waller Joel using his alias Jodell Bumatey on the PM4U forum (Waller's fondness for using aliases is explained further below) to ‘applaud’ David Thompson for having the ‘morals and ethics to know when to stand down’. Waller Joel and David Thompson are both frauds who put self-interest above all else including the right of other people not to be deceived. Waller Joel's response to David Thompson's announcement is a case of like supporting like. Waller (as I explain further down) is every bit as much a fraud as the fraudulent mediums that he defends and supports. Waller Joel and David Thompson both have similar 'morals and ethics' that are the opposite of what these words mean to decent people.

While researching evidence for the afterlife one of the things that I've learned is how easily people with a need to believe in survival can be fooled by fraudulent mediums. This is not likely to change because gullible people are always going to be around as well as fraudulent mediums who are happy to take advantage of them. I believe in the existence of a spirit world and an afterlife however my belief comes from evidence that stands the test of scrutiny using the method that juries use in trials to determine truth. David Thompson’s mediumship fails that test.

*****************************************​

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

― Edmund Burke​

Click to expand...

Given how rare I believe genuine mediums to be I consider myself to be fortunate that the first one whose séance I went to was in my estimation genuine although it’s impossible to be absolutely certain. My second séance was performed by Kai Muegge one of the most highly regarded mediums in the world today who is lauded and praised by supporters on a forum I belong to that is devoted to discussing physical mediumship. Being a novice at attending séances I went away highly impressed however being a perceptive person with a forensic mind dedicated to reality I’ve since worked out what really happened. It was a series of illusions using cunning techniques to fool sitters. Medium Kai Muegge is a fraud.

A ‘4 limb control' is used to prove to the séance sitters that the medium wasn’t able to get up and fraudulently perform the basic physical phenomena. The true purpose of the ‘4 limb control’ is to ensure that the accomplice (the medium's wife) who holds the medium is not held and can get up and sneak around in the dark doing the basic physical phenomena (banging on the cabinet, waving an LED light, waving a megaphone, touching sitters etc.). The medium uses a combination of drugs to relax him and supress the stress response so that he can focus on doing the illusions with less chance of making a mistake. He uses a breathing technique the true purpose of which is to provide him with an excuse to leave the séance room unaccompanied after he has been searched, in order to load the props that he uses during each performance to produce the ‘ectoplasm’.

The 'ectoplasm' consists of pieces of cloth which sitters never get a chance to have a proper look at with the exception of the last 'ectoplasm' which consists of cloth stretched between a rectangular shaped frame (which is probably collapsible so it can be hidden in his clothes). To make the ‘ectoplasm’ appear that it is moving the frame is tilted forward to make it appear smaller then tilted back to make it appear bigger and then tilted slightly diagonally one way and then the other way. The cloth has a slit in it through which a stage prop in the form of a miniature hand is pushed and slowly turned and then pulled back through the slit. Kai Muegge also sometimes uses 'spider web' material (which can be easily purchased on eBay) to simulate ectoplasm.

At the séance I attended a woman ‘saw’ the face of her grandfather upside down in the middle of ‘ectoplasm’. It took the medium two attempts before the woman took the bait because the ‘ectoplasm’ was only shown for a few seconds each time with the sitters being required to sing between each showing. I never got a chance to see the 'ectoplasm' either time. This is because when a photo of a person is pasted onto cloth you can’t show it for more than a few seconds or people might work out that it’s a photo stuck onto cloth.

In my post séance analysis I noted that the ‘ectoplasm’ was shown towards the side of the room that the woman it was intended for was sitting. On the way into the séance room the medium introduced himself to each of us shaking our hands, asking our names and looking at our faces. My guess is that he had checked each sitter on the internet before the séance and found that one of the female sitters had posted on social media about her grandfather after he died showing a photo of him and recounting how he used to stand on his head after dinner each evening. After the second showing of the photo pasted on cloth the woman 'saw' what Kai Muegge wanted her to see after he showed it towards the side of the room that he knew she would be sitting. Kai Muegge knew where the woman would be sitting because his accomplice wife directed where each of us sat in the circle after checking our name against her list of sitters. When the woman who had been set up to ‘see’ her grandfather gave her name she was directed to sit in the pre-arranged position in the circle just to the right of the medium’s wife where she would be close enough to the photo pasted on the sheet of cloth so she would ‘see’ her grandfather. If the sitters had been allowed to sit where they liked and the woman had sat further out where I sat in the middle of the circle it would have been too far out from the cabinet and the woman would likely not have taken the bait.

At the séance I went to the 'apport' consisting of a smooth clear piece of stone with coloured minerals in the centre of it that ‘materialised’ beneath the medium’s outstretched hand missed the cupped hands of the woman sitting cross legged on the floor waiting to receive it. This was despite her hands being perfectly placed to receive it under the medium’s outstretched hand. While the medium groaned loudly to increase the sense of drama and suck people into watching his hand eagerly and expectantly awaiting the appearance of the apport no-one looked for or saw the accomplice standing just out of the range of the narrow soft light that was focused on the medium's hand. The accomplice flicked the stone over which is why the ‘apport’ missed the hands of the woman waiting to receive it.

Recently when I checked the medium’s website I discovered that he is still doing the ‘apport’ illusion fooling people in exactly the same way as at the séance I attended. This came as no surprise to me. The drama created by the medium groaning before and as the ‘apport’ appears and all sitters intently focused on the medium’s hand waiting expectantly creates the perfect atmosphere for the sitters to 'see' what they expect to see based on their belief system (confirmation bias), and not to consider other possibilities. It takes considerable pre-planning and cunning on the medium's part to create this illusion. He and his accomplice wife hide their rat cunning well.

Most people don’t have the mindset I have to work out what really occurs based on little clues like the one I noticed at the séance I attended where the ‘apport’ missed the cupped hands of the woman waiting to receive it despite her hands being perfectly positioned to receive it. Once I considered the alternative possibility that the accomplice flicked it over the apport missing the woman's cupped hands made sense. Note here that at the séance I attended conducted by medium Tom Morris (who I concluded was genuine) the apports in the form of ping pong balls brushed my leg and the legs of adjacent sitters so we were made aware of them in a polite way that was not intrusive. This indicated to me that spirits can control apports precisely.

While at the medium’s website recently I also noted that a sitter had been co-opted at one of his séances into confirming that the medium’s accomplice (his wife) was still holding the medium at various points in the séance. We aren’t told whether this check was done while phenomena was occurring or whether the sitter could do the check at any time without permission or direction from the medium’s wife. I’m betting that the sitter was told not to check while phenomenon was occurring out of respect for the spirits and because it would make it harder for them to make the phenomena occur. It is true that it would make it harder for the phenomena to occur but not for the reason stated!

As evidence supporting the existence of the spirit world Victor Zammit in one of his weekly Friday Afterlife Reports presented an incident that occurred at a séance conducted by Kai Muegge where a ‘spirit’ appeared in red light wearing a white robe with the face of the ‘spirit’ largely covered by the robe being deliberately held up by the 'spirit' to obscure the face. When I viewed the photo of the 'spirit' at Kai Muegge's website and read the claims made about it I immediately dismissed it as not credible because the sitters weren’t able to clearly see the face of the supposed spirit entity. Why would a spirit hide his/her face so that sitters couldn’t confirm that it was the face of a deceased person known to one of the sitters or recognisable to members of the public that viewed the photo? The logical explanation for the face being obscured is that it was the medium’s accomplice (his wife) impersonating a spirit in the same vein as she impersonated spirits at the séance conducted by her husband that I attended.

If Kai Muegge wants to prove that he is genuine there is a very simple way of doing it. His legs can’t go anywhere if his hands are held by a sitter on each side and if the sitter on each side also holds hands with the person next to them then a complete circle with no breaks would be created and if the phenomena still occurred then it is probably genuine. Why has this not been agreed to by Kai Muegge and his wife to prove to that Kai Muegge's mediumship is genuine? The reason is obvious to anyone that is not suffering from true believer syndrome or blinded by the need to believe. Kai Muegge is a fraud and without his wife being free to sneak around in the dark the physical phenomena that happens during the first part of each of his séances couldn’t happen.

The other thing that needs to occur for Kai Muegge to prove that he is genuine is for him to agree to be accompanied by someone when he goes off to do his ‘hollotropic breathing’ to make sure that he doesn’t load props such as pieces of cloth to use as ‘ectoplasm’ while he is away. The alternative is that he is thoroughly searched at the end of each séance in front of the sitters. It would also be advisable to do a cavity search although this would obviously not be practical in front of sitters. If the medium agreed to these controls as part of an investigation conducted by genuinely independent researchers like for instance the society for psychical research and the phenomena still occurred this would confirm that he was genuine. Neither of these two very simple measures to prove that Kai Muegge is genuine have been agreed to and adopted. Funny about that!

On the PM4U forum (http://physicalmediumship4u.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network) when I hinted that Kai Muegge was a fraud for the reasons I’ve outlined I was called a ‘devil’ by a forum member Waller Joel who in the past has acted as one of the sitters holding the medium on one side. Waller Joel has multiple aliases he uses at different forums including a female alias Jodell Bumatay he uses on the PM4U forum whose surname appropriately begins with the letters ‘Bum’ given some of the shit that Waller posts as himself and as his female alias. He replies to his own posts using his female alias name and plays other members for fools by doing things like posting a link to another website where he has a back and forth discussion with himself in a forum topic using several aliases. He also posts as Waller Joel on the PM4U forum and then replies to his own posts using his female alias name Jodell Bumatay. Members of the PM4U forum can clearly see this in the awkward exchange between Waller and his alias Jodell Bumatay after my last post in the ‘fake mediumship’ topic. I also suspect that Waller recently created another female alias (there was a clue that told me that it was probably him which I won’t reveal here) that he used to mock the forum by posting about gardening and the use of compost. This resulted in one forum member asking why such inappropriate material was posted on a forum about physical mediumship. That member didn't understand that not all members are interested in physical mediumship and evidence for the afterlife. Waller is more interested in manure in its various forms e.g. animal excreta and posting inappropriately on forums to mock the forum and its members etc. Waller may also have other aliases or create some in the future to continue to mock the forum and its members like he has in other forums.

On the PM4U forum Waller Joel describes his female alias as a ‘luminous being of light’ who if you believe the bullshit that Waller has written about her is able to do everything bar shoot lightning bolts out of her arse. In an attempt to impress the members of the forum and make Jodell Bumatay appear credible Waller invented a fictitious conference that Jodell Bumatay was supposedly a speaker at. Waller also wrote a book titled 'Travel Guide to the Other Side for Gatekeepers of Death and Rebirth' which he makes out was written by Jodell Bumatay that you can buy on Amazon. I managed to download a copy for free and not surprisingly I found it to be a load of nonsense containing incoherent ramblings about among other things ‘the seven levels of lucidity’ with Waller as Jodell Bumatay failing to explain what these are. I also believe that Waller added photos of a woman that he found on the internet to the profile that he created on the PM4U forum for Jodell Bumatay in an attempt to give his alias more credibility. Waller chose the photos because the physical appearance of the woman fits the profile that he created for Jodell Bumatay. One can only wonder at the warped perverted mind and rat cunning required for someone to do what Waller has on the PM4U forum as well as other forums!

I'd be disappointed if I am the only person on the PM4U forum that can see through the games that Waller plays. Waller has been booted off other forums when his court jester like behaviour was exposed and there is an entire topic devoted to him at another forum (http://www.spiritualismlink.com/t2356-physical-medium-waller-joel) that he used to be a member of outlining his behaviour in detail. Why does no-one on the forum challenge Waller Joel and expose his behaviour? I tried doing it in a mild way but I went as far as I dare without risking being booted off the forum for being 'negative' by the man who runs the forum who apparently doesn't realise that Waller behaves like the joker in the batman movies and mocks the forum by posting the way that he does.

Why does Waller Joel behave in this dishonest manner? It would take a psychiatrist to determine the specifics in his case however you can get a general idea by looking at his behaviour from the perspective of the needs that all humans as social beings living in communities strive to satisfy on a daily basis. I’ve observed that all humans regardless of culture, race, creed etc. strive to satisfy the following needs on a daily basis:

Achievement

Significance

Approval

A need to be needed. This need is stronger in women than men by virtue of women biologically being child bearers and nurturers. Men also have the need but not to the degree that women do.

Note that there are other more basic instinctual background needs we have in common with animals such as survival, mating and territory but the ones I'm referring to here are social/emotional needs arising from living in communities.

Waller Joel attempts to satisfy his need for achievement, significance and approval in a lazy, illegitimate, perverted and deceitful manner similar to that of sociopathic fraudulent mediums.

An example of someone attempting to satisfy these needs legitimately (i.e. openly and honestly) is the way that I have argued on this forum why I believe in the existence of the afterlife. This took a lot of effort on my part and one of the primary driving forces spurring me on to make the effort was my hunger to satisfy my need for achievement, significance and approval.

Another example of someone legitimately satisfying his need for achievement, significance and approval is Victor Zammit posting his weekly 'Friday Afterlife Report' to inform people around the world that the afterlife is real. An example of an illegitimate way of someone trying to satisfy his need for achievement, significance and approval is Victor claiming on several occasions that he is a physical medium in regular contact with the spirit world. There is no evidence as far as I can tell to suggest that this is true. The fact that Victor is apparently willing to resort to fantasies to satisfy his needs (particularly significance) may help to explain why he continues to promote medium David Thompson despite the strong evidence that he is a fraud. I sometimes engage in pleasant fantasies while doing an exercise session on my treadmill and listening to music to take my mind off my discomfort but I recognise that they are fantasies and dismiss them once I stop exercising.

One of the fraudulent mediums I've discussed, Kai Muegge, wears sunglasses in public and gives the impression that he feels like a rock star because he is one of the world's most high profile mediums. After the séance I attended he was clearly proud of his achievement of successfully conducting the séance and impressing the sitters with his 'powers', enjoyed the approval of the sitters he had fooled (one of whom was a budding medium who revealed that he is in awe of Kai Muegge and aspires to be like him) and the feeling of significance he felt because he appears to be able to interact with the spirit world in extraordinary ways. The drugs he takes I'm guessing allow him to avoid feeling the anxiety and guilt that a normal person with a conscience would feel after conning people.

When I hinted on the PM4U forum that several high profile mediums were frauds Waller Joel became enraged to the point of calling me ‘Devil’ and writing ‘begone devil!’ in response to a post I made. An individual like Waller who thinks nothing of lying to others on forums and playing them for fools to satisfy his need for achievement, significance and approval understandably gets upset when someone like myself shines the light of truth on fraudulent mediums. Like defends its own kind!

There are two kinds of fools: those who can't change their opinions and those who won’t.

― Billings, Josh 1815-1885, American Humorist, Lecturer​

Click to expand...

Genuine mediumship of the type where ectoplasm is used by a spirit entity to create a facsimile of the spirit entity’s former human form or where ectoplasm is visible in red light is extremely rare if it exists at all and mediums who claim to be able to produce ectoplasm at every séance on demand like water from a tap are frauds.

The following are some of the reasons that fraudulent mediums get away with perpetrating fraud:

● The greatest friend of the fraudulent medium-the need to believe and true believer syndrome leading to overbelief and believing in psychic phenomena too readily. This is especially applicable to people motivated enough to attend séances the majority of whom have strong pre-existing belief systems (confirmation biases) that communication with the spirit dimension will occur at the séances they attend making them much easier to fool.

● The conditions under which séances are held in the dark being highly skewed towards the fraudulent medium being able to successfully perpetrate fraud.

● The stringent security precautions undertaken by fraudulent mediums to prevent devices like passive infra-red cameras which emit no electrical signals and are therefore harmless to ectoplasm being smuggled in to expose fraud.

● The use of techniques designed to disorientate sitters in what is already a highly disorientating environment heavily skewed in favour of the fraudulent medium such as frequent playing of loud music, repeatedly requiring sitters to sing, impressing on sitters how important it is not to think 'negative thoughts' because it will 'lower the vibrations'.

As a result there is an almost endless stream of impressionable people with strong pre-existing belief systems attending séances that ‘see’ what they expect to see and don’t seriously question or examine the experience. As long as there’s good money to be made by the reprehensible sociopaths masquerading as mediums who feel no guilt about duping gullible people by ‘giving people what they want’ nothing is likely to change despite calls for harmless infra-red cameras to be used at séances to weed out frauds.

There’s a sucker born every minute.

― P. T. Barnum​

Click to expand...

Frauds will always refuse to allow infra-red cameras to be used even if they are harmless to ectoplasm coming up with excuses such as the presence of the camera would lead to ‘lowering the vibrations’ making it impossible for paranormal phenomena to occur or simply flatly refusing to allow such cameras without giving a reason. This is understandable but what isn’t so understandable is how readily the average séance attender will unquestioningly accept this without considering that it's because the camera would expose the medium as a fraud.

One institution, the Arthur Finley College, has had the courage and integrity to say no to frauds determining the way that séances are conducted by announcing that it will only allow séances on its premises if the medium agrees to being filmed using a discreetly placed passive infrared camera that is harmless to ectoplasm. The college is to be commended for this. It is currently a lone voice of reason and integrity in what an observer might otherwise conclude is an asylum in which the inmates can’t see that 'the need to believe' and 'true believer syndrome' has resulted in them suffering from a condition bordering on insanity. Something is very wrong when frauds are allowed to set the agenda for the way that séances are conducted to suit their deceitful ends and people willingly sacrifice reason and rationality not to mention their hard earned money for the fool’s gold that frauds present to them.

The question arises is it possible to capture real paranormal phenomena with an infrared camera? The answer appears to be yes. In the documentary ‘The Afterlife Investigations’ an infra-red camera was used to film a séance and the person filming was asked to turn the camera off just before apports in the form of roses complete with stems were produced but the operator of the camera secretly kept filming and you could see the roses dropping apparently out of thin air.

The roses were shown after the séance and there were no signs of damage to the delicate petals etc that you'd expect to see if the roses had been hidden by someone and produced fraudulently to give the impression that they were apports. They appeared to be true apports filmed appearing out of thin air by the infra-red camera with no harm being done to the medium conducting the séance as a result of filming using an infra-red camera.

Infra-red cameras have been around a long time by the way and have been used in séances in the past but only briefly and mediums quickly realised how damaging they could be to their income and no medium would allow such a camera into a séance. This was after an infra-red camera was used in a séance in 1960 at Camp Chesterfield in the US and it revealed mediums and their accomplices wearing chiffon coming out of a secret room into the séance room pretending to be spirits. Camp Chesterfield in those days was raking in over a million dollars a year from gullible people and that’s in 1960 dollars.

The other occasion that comes to mind is when a camera was used to film medium Gary Mannion and it exposed him as a fraud. There’s good money to be made conning gullible people so it’s not surprising that no medium has agreed to allow himself to be filmed conducting a séance. After all the cameras might ‘lower the vibrations’ and then the spirits wouldn’t show up. Or perhaps there’s an alternate reason!

Confessions of a Fraudulent Medium!
M. Lamar Keene was a very successful fraudulent medium in the US for around 13 years and then something happened which is rare because most fraudulent mediums (and there are many more than most of you realise) are sociopaths without a conscience. Keene became disgusted with himself and confessed that he was a fraud and agreed to do a book explaining some of the methods that he and other fraudulent mediums used to successfully perpetrate fraud.

The average person is exceedingly easy to fool. No book could ever detail all the methods by which the fake psychic or medium performs his wonders. Most people, with no inkling of such methods, believe in psychic phenomena much too readily. The need to believe in phony wonders sometimes exceeds not only logic but, seemingly, even sanity.

On reading the book 'The Psychic Mafia' by Lamar Keene I learned that the excuse used by Gary Mannion that he was in trance and wasn’t aware of what he was doing was a standard response used by many fraudulent mediums when they were caught cheating. This excuse was accepted by most people back when Lamar Keene was a medium because people were generally more naïve then compared to today. This excuse doesn't work as well today because people are better educated and more sophisticated and see such an excuse for what it really is-an attempt by the medium to evade responsibility for committing repeated premeditated conscious fraud.

Because people are generally better educated and more sophisticated today does this mean that they are harder to fool? The answer appears to be no. The 'need to believe', 'true believer syndrome' and the tendency to 'overbelief' that is commonly found in people that attend séances means that lawyers, teachers, doctors, scientists etc. are as likely to go away from a séance believing that they witnessed contact with the spirit world as ordinary less educated people when they are more likely to have witnessed a series of clever illusions.

In the book ‘The Psychic Mafia’ Lamar Keene reveals how widespread fraudulent mediumship was in the past (and no doubt still is today) and some of the methods that he and his associates used to perpetrate their despicable fraud. These methods I have no doubt are still being used today along with new ones. While people today are generally better educated and more sophisticated human nature and the ‘need to believe’ haven’t changed since the days when Lamar Keene and his associates were duping people and fraudulent mediums now have a much wider array of technology to assist them in performing their illusions.

Forums where all evidence including evidence suggesting that a medium might be fraudulent and where alternate hypotheses are allowed to be discussed to explain phenomena reported at séances perform a vital function in helping people to arrive at the truth. I owe a debt of gratitude to forums where people are allowed to voice their concerns about mediums that they suspect are fraudulent otherwise I have no doubt that I would not have figured out that I'd been conned after I attended my second séance. The world also owes a debt of gratitude to M. Lamar Keene for listening to his conscience, confessing the reprehensible fraud he got away with for 13 years as a medium and agreeing to do the book ‘The Psychic Mafia’!

Most mediums probably are what psychiatrists call sociopathic. They have a moral block, a defective conscience. Things that other people consider wrong, they consider legitimate. Cheating, lying, stealing, conning– these are sanctified in the ethics of mediumship as I knew it.

― M Lamar Keene 'The Psychic Mafia'​

Click to expand...

In the quote above Lamar Keene was referring to fraudulent mediums that he associated with not genuine ones (Lamar Keene had never seen a genuine medium). Is it easy to spot a sociopathic fraudulent medium from talking to one? Generally speaking the answer is no. The medium and his accomplice that performed the series of sophisticated tricks at the second séance I attended came across as charming, honest, decent people that would never deceive anyone. They both work closely together. An example of this is the medium telling a subtle lie during the talk that he gave to sitters prior to the séance telling sitters that his wife (who is also his accomplice) would never allow him to cheat! The purpose of this lie was to implant the idea in sitters' minds that his wife was scrupulously honest so sitters would be less likely to cotton on that she is actually his accomplice! The medium and his wife have been successfully deceiving the great majority of people that attend their séances for years because they are very good at their chosen craft.

Those of you that aren’t afraid of the light of truth or risking having some of your pre-existing belief systems about séances and mediums shaken up can download the book ‘The Psychic Mafia’ by M. Lamar Keene in PDF format by clicking on the link below. The book is a must read for anyone that goes to séances.

If anyone feels that I have been overly critical and negative I'd like to make it clear that I’m not against people wanting to interact with the spirit dimension and to learn more about it. I am against mediums who seek to enrich themselves by exploiting peoples' need to believe by deliberately deceiving them for monetary gain. It takes two to tango and some of the blame here also lies in the way that many people who go to séances with pre-existing belief systems unquestioningly accept what is presented to them by mediums without considering alternate possibilities.

When people that attend séances have a need to believe that is greater than their need for truth and they abandon common sense by checking their brains at the séance room door it enables a duet dance of deception to occur between the fraudulent medium and sitters with both sides sharing culpability. The fraudulent medium is culpable for being dishonest and the séance attenders are culpable for suspending their critical faculties out of laziness so that their need to believe can be satisfied. The fraudulent medium says to the séance goers you have a need and I can satisfy it and the sitters reply yes please satisfy our need and make us happy and if you use illusions we won’t mind as long as they are convincing and we don’t realise that we’ve been fooled. This is the contract just below the level of awareness that both parties agree to prior to the dance of deception.

We like to be deceived.

― Pascal, Blaise 1623-1662, French Scientist, Religious Philosopher​

Click to expand...

One organisation the Arthur Finley College has shown leadership, courage and integrity by acknowledging the widespread prevalence of fraudulent mediumship and deciding to do something to prevent it by only allowing séances to be held on its premises if the medium agrees to being filmed by means of a discretely positioned passive infra-red camera harmless to ectoplasm. If laws were introduced in countries making it compulsory for all séances to be filmed using an infra-red camera with a stiff jail sentence for any medium that broke the law a thriving cottage industry based on exploiting peoples’ need to believe would be shut down. Could it be that many people that attend séances would rather have illusions than nothing? I suspect this to be the case.

I didn’t abandon my critical faculties at either of the séances I attended. The sitter next to me at my first séance conducted by medium Tom Morris accused the medium’s assistant of committing fraud so he clearly thought it was a load of nonsense while the séance proceeded. I like my fellow sitter had strong doubts as well. Guess what? The spirits still came and I witnessed spectacular physical phenomena at this séance which I concluded was genuine for reasons I've already explained and it was more impressive phenomena in my opinion than any that a fraud could produce. When mediums emphasise the importance of avoiding ‘negative thoughts’ and they subtly suggest that reason and common sense must be abandoned for the spirits to be able to come through something isn’t right.

Common sense tells me that if an infra-red camera was present then sitters could relax because they could forget about having to look for fraud. They could sing with gusto when required and abandon and immerse themselves in the experience knowing that fraud would be picked up by the camera. It follows from this that an infra-red red camera would make it easier to ‘raise the vibrations’.

Would the spirits be put off by such cameras? Common sense tells me that if the spirits aren’t put off by red light and cassette recorders they wouldn’t be put off by a totally passive camera picking up variations in heat. Would such a camera be able to pick-up a spirit if the spirit had no heat to pick up? Common sense tells me that it wouldn’t matter because as long as the physical phenomena such as levitations, apports etc could be picked up by the camera and verified as real rather than tricks done by a fraudulent medium then most people including myself would see this as proof of interaction with the spirit dimension.

I heard a medium say that a camera would be allowed if the ‘spirit team’ agreed to it. Curiously no ‘spirit team’ has ever agreed to the cameras and when someone snuck one into a séance it revealed that the medium who said that the spirit team would need to agree to a camera was revealed by the camera to be a fraud! On being exposed as a fraud the medium responded that the spirits knew that the camera was there so they put the medium into trance and made him behave unethically for a 'greater purpose'. Really? The technical term that I use to describe a response like that by a medium is bullshit!

Would the medium be put off by such a camera? Common sense tells me that if the medium practiced going into trance in private with a camera running he could learn to get used to a camera being present and if the camera was discreetly placed in the séance room and the medium was allowed to conduct the séance as normal the presence of the camera should not be a problem. Why then is there no medium that I know of that charges money for conducting séances willing to allow such cameras into the séance? I can think of a good reason-it just might mean that they are frauds. Why can I come up with a logical reason like this when apparently many others can’t? Perhaps it’s because my vision is not blinded by the need to believe and this allows me to use my common sense and critical faculties needed to work out what’s real and what isn’t and whether a medium is a fraud or genuine.

If All That Is (the creator, God or whatever term you want to use) exists surely All That Is, is reality, and to get closer to reality one must discard illusion. How is this possible when frauds are allowed to determine the way that séances are conducted so that it's almost impossible to distinguish between illusion and reality?

It makes one wonder whether the people in charge of the Arthur Finley College who announced that séances would only be allowed to be conducted on its premises if the medium agreed to a harmless infra-red camera being used to film the séance are the only sane people in what could be mistaken for a lunatic asylum with the inmates being séance goers who willingly abandon common sense and their critical faculties because of the need to believe.

The more research I do on mediums the more I’ve come to realise how many frauds there were in the past and still are around today.

Helen Duncan is an example. A Google search produces photos of her taken while she was conducting séances supposedly producing 'ectoplasm' which is clearly cloth material with photos of people sometimes pasted on it. She also sometimes used crude dolls to depict spirits and life sized posters of people that she hoped séance sitters would believe were spirit people in the dim light of the séance room. She misjudged how the photos she allowed to be taken during her séances would look to later generations. The fact that she died soon after police interrupted one of her séances does not mean that ectoplasm shooting back into her body killed her. The one piece of evidence that supports her having had some psychic powers is her correctly revealing that a ship had been sunk in World War 2 before the government had announced it. This does not prove that she was a genuine medium.

Another example is medium Gordon Higginson. When I looked at a photo of him with 'ectoplasm' flowing from his mouth it was obviously cotton wool like material that he’d hidden somewhere in the room and hung from his mouth just before the photo was taken. Based on my readings he researched people that he knew would be attending his performances and disclosed the information claiming it came from the spirit world. When he realised that people were beginning to figure out that he was a phony he abruptly retired from mediumship citing bad health.

A more recent medium is Colin Fry who died a couple of years ago. When a light was accidentally switched on during one of his séances he was caught waving a trumpet around that was supposedly levitating. The fact that he was caught doing this was enough for me not to waste my time investigating his 'mediumship' any further however recently someone on the PM4U forum posted a link to a recording of part of one his séances including photos taken at precise moments following instructions given by the ‘spirit’. When I watched the video it was immediately apparent that I was watching a puppet master (a fraudulent medium talking in a ridiculous sounding voice not unlike David Thompson's William) controlling his puppets (the people following his instructions). Some people on the forum apparently saw the video as evidence for the afterlife with a shirt the medium was wearing supposedly being 'dematerialised' and 'rematerialized' lying on his lap. I couldn't help thinking that God must love gullible people because he created so many of them!

Leslie Flint is another that comes to mind. Many of his voices sound similar and in the book The Psychic Mafia it is suggested that he was a ventriloquist using his own voice to impersonate spirit voices. That would explain the similarity of many of his voices and why some of them purporting to be famous people didn’t sound like the famous person. Flint supposedly channelling George Bernard Shaw without his Irish accent comes to mind here and giving a contrived very dubious reason for losing his Irish accent. That's something a fraud who wasn’t confident enough to impersonate a voice with an Irish accent would do.

There is a photo of Flint with a supposed voice box made of ectoplasm coming out between his neck and the collar of his shirt:

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

Click to expand...

There’s no reason for spirit scientists to make ectoplasm come up from one of Flint’s lower bodily orifices and snake its way up to emerge between his neck and the collar of his shirt unless this allowed him to speak at the same time as the ‘spirits’ appearing at his séances and I’ve not heard any audio of this happening. People who blindly accept that it’s a voice box made of ectoplasm have allowed their need to believe to become more important than dedication to reality.

William Rauscher and Allen Spraggett, who attended a sitting Flint held in 1970 in New York, told me that it was the most abysmal flop of any seance they had endured. All the spirit voices sounded exactly like the medium and displayed an incredible ignorance of nearly everything pertaining to the sitters. The “mediumship” was second-rate ventriloquism.

― The Psychic Mafia by M Lamar Keene pg. 80​

Click to expand...

One thing that struck me about Flint’s voices when I first started listening to recordings of his séances was how many of the voices had a British ‘upper class’ accent a little like the one that Prince Charles of the royal family has. This accent and voice can be heard in many of Flint’s séances regardless of who was supposedly speaking from the spirit dimension. Even when famous people known to have distinctive accents came through they spoke with this British ‘upper class’ accent. An example of this is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I have listened to the voice of the real Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in a YouTube video available on the internet and compared it with the voice that came through at the Flint séance claiming to be Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that has the British ‘upper class’ accent and they clearly aren’t the same person. Could Flint have been a ventriloquist impersonating various people? This provides a logical rational explanation for why many of Flint’s voices sound similar.

One of the voices that came through in a Flint séance was the Scottish medium John Sloane who also comes through in séances conducted by medium Tom Morris. Both voices have Scottish accents but very different personalities. The John Sloane that appeared at Leslie Flint’s séance talks in a casual, light-hearted manner and sounds shallow to me saying nothing of any substance. He speaks in the same light hearted way that many other voices at Flint séances speak saying little of substance and nothing that proves they are who they claim to be.

The voice of John Sloane who comes through at Tom Morris’ séances speaks in a more thoughtful, reflective, serious manner that reflects his awareness of the significance of what he is doing. This John Sloane interacts with sitters answering their questions in a way that suggests that he’s nobody’s fool and reveals personal details about his life on earth. They can’t both be John Sloane. At least one of the mediums has to be a phony. I’ve already given detailed reasons why I believe the séance I attended conducted by Tom Morris was genuine so if I had to pick which John Sloane was more likely to be the real one it would be the one that came through at the séance conducted by Tom Morris.

Another voice that came through at a Leslie Flint séance was the 'spirit voice' of Mahatma Gandhi. It took me only a few minutes of listening to the voice to conclude that it was Flint impersonating Gandhi and doing a laughably amateurish job yet I still see Flint being promoted today by people like Victor Zammit as if there is no question that Flint was genuine. Have a listen to the 'spirit voice' of Mahatma Gandhi who came through at the Leslie Flint séance in the first link below. You’ll hear some words spoken in the ‘upper class’ English accent that many of the 'spirit voices' that came through in Flint’s séances spoke with. The real Gandhi who you can hear in the second link had a higher pitched voice than the one that came through at the Flint séance and he didn’t have an accent consisting of a mixture of words spoken with an ‘upper class’ British accent and the rest spoken with a fake sounding Indian accent. If you have any perceptive powers at all it should be evident within the first few minutes of listening to the voice claiming to be Gandhi that it's Flint impersonating Gandhi and doing an embarrassingly bad job of it. I broke into laughter while listening to it and realising the extent of the con that Flint got away with over so many years and how he is still fooling people after his death through his recordings!

Why did it take a book like ‘The Psychic Mafia’ written by a fraudulent medium for this obvious possible alternative explanation to be put forward? People who believe in an afterlife either fail to notice that many of Flint’s voices sounded similar or dismiss it as not being significant because they assume that Flint couldn’t have faked so many voices over so many years. Many of Flint’s voices sounding similar however is significant and when you look at Flint from the possibility that he may have been a ventriloquist impersonating people from the spirit dimension then many of his voices sounding similar makes sense. The extent to which the need to believe blinds people to alternate possibilities is one reason why so many fraudulent mediums get away with it. Rev. Canon William V. Rauscher put it in much simpler words so I’ll present his words again:

The need to believe in phony wonders sometimes exceeds not only logic but, seemingly, even sanity.

Only a few of Flint’s voices that I’ve heard were voices of women. I have a normal male voice and when I experimented I found that I could create a voice that could be mistaken for a female if I spoke or sang with a higher pitch than normal. Not all males have the range of voice pitch, ability to relax and confidence to do this but I can and there’s no reason why Leslie Flint couldn’t. This also applies to doing the voice of Mickey, Leslie Flint’s contrived and silly sounding ‘spiritual helper’ who I can imitate reasonably well with no rehearsing. I’ve noticed that other fraudulent mediums also came up with their own version of Flint’s Mickey that sound contrived and silly. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! There’s a female voice I’ve heard singing at a Flint séance which I as a male am able to do a pretty good imitation of without any practice. There is another way I can think of creating a female voice using a little Walkman cassette player (common in Leslie Flint's time) with speakers snuck into the séance room. This would only work if the ‘spirit’ voice sang or made a statement and then disappeared and I’ve heard at least one female voice at a Flint séance do that.

When I first started writing this post I was new to attending séances and I was much more naïve than I am now. At that time I didn’t understand how easily people could be deceived and so I wrote that a husband was reunited with his deceased wife Anni Nanji at a series of Leslie Flint séances and that it happened enough times for him to be able to work out whether or not it really was his wife. This doesn't mean that the man made any serious attempt to work out whether it really was his wife. As well as not appreciating how easily people can be deceived I also didn’t appreciate that most people don’t analyse evidence for the afterlife the way that I do and become better at distinguishing between what's true and what's false as a result like I have.

One of the things that the ‘spirit voice’ of the man’s wife told him was that he would be allowed to stay in the spirit world permanently once his current life was over. I don’t believe that a spirit would know this or be permitted to tell a human this while still living on earth. Such a thing would be determined when the current earth life was over. My readings suggest that it may be decided by the advanced beings who are guardians and custodians of our system of reality whose existence is acknowledged by Seth channelled through Jane Roberts and in the book ‘Journey of Souls’ by Michael Newton which I refer to later in this post. Irrespective of how it's decided I don't believe that a spirit would know or be permitted to tell a human such a thing.

This man who believed that the voice he heard at the Leslie Flint séances was that of his wife Anni Nanji speaking from the spirit world may well have been like Victor Zammit who has been fooled a great number of times by David Thompson and no matter what evidence you present to prove this Victor refuses to believe it because Victor ‘knows’ the truth without needing to check evidence the way that juries do in trials. The technical term for people that ‘know’ the truth without needing to check evidence is delusions of grandeur. Self-confessed fraudulent medium Lamar Keene calls it ‘true believer syndrome’ in his book ‘The Psychic Mafia’ and describes true believer syndrome as the greatest friend of the fraudulent medium.

Victor Zammit writes a weekly report in support of the existence of the afterlife and assures his readers that there is an afterlife citing the great number of séances conducted by David Thompson that he has attended. When evidence sufficiently strong for a jury to find that David Thompson is a fraud is presented it is ignored or rationalised away by Victor so that he can continue to hold his belief that David Thompson is proof of an afterlife. Another possible example of this is the husband of Anni Nanji who went to Leslie Flint séances as a grieving husband hoping for contact with his deceased wife in the spirit world. If he was a true believer like Victor Zammit this man would have believed that the voice he heard was his deceased wife’s without needing to objectively analyse his experience.

Looking at it from the husband's viewpoint why wouldn’t he believe that it was the voice of his wife Anni Nanji if he got a great feeling of emotional comfort from doing so even if it wasn’t really her voice. Human beings aren’t logical they are psychological with psychological and emotional needs that they seek to satisfy.

When you look at it from the husband’s perspective he had more reason to believe that the voice was his wife speaking from the spirit world than most people who attend séances seeking proof of survival and who 'see' and 'hear' what they expect to at a séance in line with their belief system (confirmation bias) and never work out that they have been conned. What mattered most to Anni Nanji's husband would have been the comforting feeling that he got from interacting with the ‘spirit voice’ and feeling like he was with his wife again. If he felt deeply comforted by the experience he may have went with it and not questioned the authenticity of the voice including after the séances he attended.

Anni Nanji’s husband by the way was a doctor. People who disagree with my view would argue that a highly educated person like a doctor would be unlikely to be fooled by Leslie Flint impersonating the ‘spirit voice’ of his wife however first and foremost the man was a grieving husband missing his recently deceased wife. The emotional comfort and the easing of his grief and loneliness that the man got from interacting with the ‘spirit voice’ he heard would have mattered far more to him than objectively analysing what was happening. Like Anni Nanji's husband Victor Zammit is a highly educated professional person (a lawyer) but when Victor hears ‘spirit voices’ at séances conducted by David Thompson Victor ‘knows’ (true believer syndrome) that they are genuine even though they sound nothing like the voices of the persons when they lived on earth.

Human beings are not always logical and objective when strongly held cherished beliefs (e.g. the need to believe in survival) are involved. When he went to see Leslie Flint Anni Nanji’s husband did not go as a doctor but as a grieving husband hoping to be reunited with his deceased wife and for confirmation that she was in the spirit world waiting for him when he crossed to the other side. Analysing the spirit voice he heard objectively to determine whether it was his wife would have been the last thing on his mind during the experience and possibly after it if it resulted in him feeling greatly comforted and it relieved his feelings of grief and loneliness.

How do I know that it wasn’t the voice of the man’s wife? I don’t. There is no way for me or anyone else including the man who apparently believed that the voice was his wife speaking from the spirit world to be absolutely certain one way or the other. One way to remove some of the ambiguity would have been for an infra-red camera harmless to ectoplasm to be used to film Flint’s séances and confirm that no funny business occurred. Even if such a camera was used if Flint was using ventriloquism to impersonate spirit voices this would have been almost impossible to pick up unless Flint was gagged and the camera showed him loosening and removing the gag. No medium will allow using such a camera (including Leslie Flint when he was alive). Funny about that. The best I can do is look at the evidence objectively in the context of the larger picture I have and come to a conclusion that I believe is most likely to be the truth. Every person should do this but many don’t and people have greatly differing abilities to distinguish between what’s real and what's illusory.

An example of how analysing an experience objectively can lead to a totally different conclusion is my glowing report earlier in this post written soon after I attended a séance conducted by medium Kai Muegge. Reading that report you would think that Kai Muegge was an extraordinarily gifted medium yet after painstakingly analysing the experience I concluded that I was conned and that Kai Muegge is a fraud. One of the differences between myself and many people that go to séances is that the initial impression many people form doesn’t change and they go to séance after séance and are conned again and again. Recently I listened once again to a Leslie Flint séance I first heard when I was naïve and new to mediums and séances during which a 'Roman soldier' appeared and spoke followed by Mickey, Flint’s contrived sounding assistant, who said there were other spirit people present and then a 'Roman woman' sang. This time instead of automatically believing that I was listening to voices from the spirit world I marvelled at the range of voices that Flint was able to do switching from one voice to another very quickly and raising the pitch of his voice for each spirit voice that he did.

Interestingly while listening to other audio recordings of ‘spirit voices’ at Leslie Flint séances for the second time but this time from the perspective of the alternate possibility that the voices might have been created by Leslie Flint using ventriloquism, the fraud in many cases was obvious! Why wasn’t it obvious when I listened the first time? Because when I listened the first time I was naïve and new to evaluating mediums and séances and like the herd I automatically bought into the hype about Flint after reading all of the reports in support of him being a genuine medium. As a result when I heard the voices the first time I automatically interpreted them as coming from the spirit world! This impressed on me just how powerful a mechanism confirmation bias is! If you condition people by repeatedly implanting suggestions into their minds then most people will ‘hear’ and ‘see’ what they’ve been conditioned to hear and see. No wonder so many fraudulent mediums have been able to fool so many people!

There are too many inconsistencies and anomalies associated with Leslie Flint’s mediumship for me to be confident that he was genuine even some of the time. I don't believe in mixed mediumship because it would mean that the spirit world was aiding a medium that it knew was cheating and to do this would taint the credibility of all that comes through from the spirit world. If you believe that ectoplasm is coming out from between Flint's neck and the collar of his shirt in the photo I referred to earlier then you care more about satisfying your need to believe than working out what’s real and true. The photo confirms that Flint was a fraud at least some of the time. Then there are the anomalies I discussed with respect to many of the 'spirit voices' in Flint's séances sounding similar and having an 'upper class' English accent when the persons that lived on earth didn't speak that way. There's also Flint's impersonation of Gandhi which was laughable as was the excuse given by the 'spirit' of George Bernard Shaw in a Flint séance for having lost his Irish accent.

Despite claims that Flint was the most tested medium ever (Flint acting as his own press agent is the main person I've seen claiming this) he was never tested by a reputable investigative body. I'm guessing that Flint had at least one accomplice that helped him pass the tests and commit his fraud. The most likely person was the man whose voice you can hear during each séance who welcomes the 'spirits' and presumably recorded the séances and sometimes sounds underwhelmed by what's happening perhaps because he knows what's really going on (there's also a woman who is present in a lot of séances with him who could have been in on it). I now believe that Flint was another fraud who satisfied his need for significance illegitimately. He probably rationalised his fraudulent mediumship by telling himself that he was giving people hope and was supporting the spirit world. Flint has had so much written in support of him that many people today automatically assume that he was genuine.

People who assess mediums through the filter of their belief system (confirmation bias) and need to believe and as a result ‘know’ (true believer syndrome) that Leslie Flint is genuine will disagree with me but after looking objectively at the evidence I believe that Leslie Flint was the most successful fraudulent medium of them all. He was the 'gold standard' for fraudulent mediums and the one whose success other frauds seek to emulate because he got away with it for such a long time and is still conning gullible people after his death through his recordings.

The more I’ve learned about mediums, séances and the sort of 'evidence' that people accept the more I’ve come to realise how many people interpret ‘evidence’ through the filter of their need to believe and existing belief system (confirmation bias) without giving serious consideration to alternate possibilities. Anyone that that doesn’t look at evidence critically and consider alternate possibilities is more interested in confirming his/her existing belief system than truth. At my second séance when the medium Kai Muegge offered to submit to a cavity search one of the sitters said words to the effect, ‘we don’t need you to be searched’. This was before this fraudulent medium left unaccompanied to load his props necessary to produce his phony ectoplasm and no-one discovered the props because the medium wasn’t searched after returning! The trusting child-like attitude and mentality displayed by this well-meaning fool of a sitter is not unusual. The sitter left the séance oblivious to the fact that he’d been conned and with zero chance of working out what really occurred because of his trusting attitude. When I first started looking at evidence for the afterlife and attending séances I was naïve like this man but not to the degree that he demonstrated that night. I realised pretty quickly that if I wanted to get to the truth about mediums and séances as evidence for the afterlife I needed to view everything with a critical eye using the method that juries use in trials to determine truth.

My best educated guess is that spirits pick and choose their mediums carefully with character being one of the most important factors. Spirits would know the character of frauds and would not assist them to enrich themselves through things like mixed mediumship. Someone like Chico Xavier who was revered in his country comes to mind here. All of the money made from the many books resulting from his mediumship went to various charities. He appears to have been a very humble genuinely decent man who worked tirelessly to help others. I’m guessing that he was genuine based on his character and the huge amount of verifiable material resulting from his mediumship. I haven’t read any of his books by the way and so I have no idea of the quality of what they contain so my judgement is a tentative one. One of the things that stands out about genuine mediums is the quality of the material that came through for the benefit of mankind. Frauds produce nothing but flimflam because it's not coming from the spirit dimension.

I recently heard the term ‘trance puppet’ used to suggest a possible explanation for why a medium who appears to be of good character behaved fraudulently. This is an insult to the spirit world. Spirits would not do such a thing or be allowed to do such a thing by those higher up because it would violate the reason why humans are here-spiritual growth through the exercise of free will. The trance puppet argument is put forward by the fraudulent medium to absolve himself of culpability for deliberate conscious pre-meditated fraud and to manipulate kind hearted people into continuing to support him after he has been exposed.

Not for an instant would advanced beings interfere (even if they could) with the freedom and free will that are the right of every soul.

When I hear someone say that a medium is ‘working towards phenomenon in light' I am immediately suspicious. I once heard the partner of a fraudulent medium, who is a medium herself, say this and I couldn't help thinking that she was giving false hope to séance goers while her fraudulent medium partner continued to milk people of their money. On the other hand I recently heard another women say that a group of mediums at the venue she provides for circles were ‘working towards phenomenon in light’ and in her case it reflected the innocent well-meaning intentions of the person that said it. Reading the book The French Connection by N. Riley Heagerty it was clear that the medium Emily French (who I'm convinced was genuine) didn’t have to do anything other than sit and relax and wait for the spirits to come through. Emily French was as bewildered by what was happening as the sitters when spirit voices came through at her séances with all of the 'work' coming from the spirit world.

Is phenomenon in full light possible? I believe that it may well be possible but that it is unlikely to ever occur on any consistent basis because we aren’t meant to have that level of certainty while we are having our human experiences. I believe that the spirit world reveals as much as we are capable of understanding and using positively while having our human experiences with more to be revealed as humans are capable of understanding it and using it in a positive way. If I’m right then in 100 years a new generation of séance goers will still be being told that this or that medium is ‘working towards phenomenon in light’. There is a time and a place for everything and the earth is a school where we have lessons to learn before moving on and these lessons are best learned without the veil between this and the spirit world being completely lifted.

The opinions I’ve expressed in this post reflect a journey from initially being a naïve believer in mediums and paranormal phenomena that I read about into the person that I am now that has become increasingly discerning and discriminating with respect to what I believe and don't believe. The way my views have changed is visible reading through this long post that was started years ago. Reading my initial account of the séance I attended conducted by medium Kai Muegge for instance you can see my innocence and naivety clearly on display. You can also see it in later pages of this topic which reflect a time when I was still not aware of how cunning fraudulent mediums can be and how many of them got away with fraud in the past. What I find interesting is how many people stay naïve like I was and continue to be fooled over and over again. My changing views reflect my dedication to reality above any need to believe and my refusal to use false evidence to promote the existence of the afterlife.

On pages 8 and 11 of this debate I described an incident when I tried to contact my mother in the spirit dimension and I received an unexpected response from the spirit world. I was motivated by love when I attempted the contact and I wasn’t thinking of myself and I believe that this is a major reason why I got a response. Our characters and motives are visible in the spirit world. The fraud who seeks fame and to enrich himself gets no aid from the spirit world.

It is astonishing what force, purity, and wisdom it requires for a human being to keep clear of falsehoods.

― Margaret Fuller, 1810-1850, American Writer, Lecturer​

Click to expand...

As well as physical mediumship where ectoplasm is supposedly involved other types of mediumship exist such as when a medium purportedly goes into a trance state and a spirit entity take control of the medium’s body and speaks through the medium. This is the type of mediumship I witnessed at my first séance conducted by medium Tom Morris that I concluded was genuine. This to me is a more readily believable type of mediumship and some mediums have revealed profound concepts through this form of mediumship e.g. Jane Roberts famous for the Seth material. Another common form of mediumship involves mental telepathy when a medium (e.g. John Edwards) supposedly telepathically picks up the thoughts of people that have passed to the spirit world. A variation of this is when someone that has died reportedly communicates telepathically with a loved one still living on earth. The credibility and trustworthiness of such forms of mediumship are best judged on a case by case basis.

A number of books have been written reportedly based on telepathic communication between someone on earth and a loved one in the spirit world. A fairly recent example is the book ‘Matthew, Tell Me About Heaven’ by Suzanne Ward who claimed to have received telepathic communication from her brother Matthew soon after he died in a car accident. On reading the book at first I was sceptical but then I concluded that it was generally in accord with well-respected existing material describing the spiritual dimension that we go to between our earth lives. At worst the book is an entertaining read for people interested in such material and at best it presents a detailed description of the workings of the facsimile of earth ‘Summerland’ that we live in between our earth lives written in an easily understandable contemporary way.

Another book I’ve recently come across is ‘Journey of Souls’ by Michael Newton a hypnotherapist who has hypnotised many people and while they were in a superconscious state got them to describe what life is like in the spirit world between their lives on earth.

The superconscious houses our real identity, augmented by the subconscious which contains the memories of the many alter-egos assumed by us in our former human bodies. The superconscious may not be a level at all, but the soul itself. The superconscious mind represents our highest center of wisdom and perspective, and all my information about life after death comes from this source of intelligent energy.

― 'Journey of Souls' by Michael Newton​

Click to expand...

According to what Michael Newton’s subjects have revealed under hypnosis humans weren’t directly created by All That Is (God). All That Is created beings that run the physical universe and they created us from an energy pool. These beings care about us just as All That Is cares about us. We are their children so to speak and they nurture our spiritual evolution by appointing guides who watch over us and discuss our performance with us at the completion of each of our reincarnational lives in a non-judgemental caring way.

I have never worked with a subject in trance who did not have a personal guide.

― Chapter 8 Our Guides 'Journey of Souls' by Michael Newton​

Click to expand...

Seth channelled through Jane Roberts reveals that he lived a great number of lives before graduating from this earth school. One of Michael Newton’s subjects was a rare woman at the last level V stage before no longer needing to reincarnate and Michael Newton found that her first lives started 70,000 to 130,000 years ago.

Almost at once, I found this woman's span of incarnations staggering, going far back into the distant past of human life on Earth. Touching on her earliest memories, I came to the conclusion her first lives occurred at the beginning of the last warm interglacial period which lasted from 130,000 to 70,000 years ago, before the last great Ice Age spread over the planet. During the warmer climate of the middle Paleolithic period of Earth's history, my subject described living in moist, sub-tropical savannas near hunting, fishing, and plant-gathering areas. Later, some 50,000 years ago, when continental sheets of ice had again changed Earth's climate, she spoke of living in caves and enduring bitter cold. Leaping rapidly over large blocks of time, I found her physical appearance changing from a slightly bent to a more erect posture. As we moved forward in time, I directed her to look into pools of water and feel her body while reporting back to me. Her sloping forehead became more vertical over thousands of years in different bodies. Supraorbital ridges above the eyes grew less pronounced as did body hair and the massive jaws of archaic man. In her many lives as both men and women, I was given enough information on habitat, the use of fire, tools, clothes, food, and ritualistic tribal practices for rough anthropological dating.

― Case 23 'Journey of Souls' by Michael Newton​

Click to expand...

The following exchange between Michael Newton (Dr N) and this woman (S) who is an advanced soul at level V provides an example of the understanding that her soul has gained of the bigger picture after reincarnating on earth a great number of times:

Dr. N: If all basic intelligent energy is the same, why are souls different in their character and integrity?

S: Because their experiences with physical life change them and this is intentional. By that change new ingredients are added to the collective intelligence of every soul.

Dr. N: And this is what incarnation on Earth is all about?

S: Incarnation is an important tool, yes. Some souls are driven more than others to expand and achieve their potential, but all of us will do so in the end. Being in many physical bodies and different settings expands the nature of our real self.

― Case 23 'Journey of Souls' by Michael Newton​

Click to expand...

Out of the 7 billion people currently inhabiting earth Michael Newton estimates that there may only be a few hundred thousand persons at the level V that this woman was at with the great majority (over 70%) of persons being at the first two beginner levels. I’m guessing that this woman who remembered lives going back 70,000 to 130,000 years ago had lived as many as 200 or more lives and the people who are still at the first two beginner levels that can remember lives going back 30,000 years had lived as many as 100 or more lives. My estimate is based on the assumption of one reincarnational life lived on average about every 300 years. Regardless of how accurate my estimate is (it's probably a little on the high side due to longer intervals between earlier lives as primitive man) the number of lives lived before no longer needing to reincarnate is higher than most people would expect. Australian researcher Peter Ramster found that the most number of lives that one of his hypnotic subjects could remember was 14. This is consistent with Michael Newton's finding that the majority of people on earth are in the first two beginner stages with people at levels IV and V who have lived a great number of lives being very rare.

Michael Newton found that the time span between incarnations during the Palaeolithic age was hundreds even thousands of years. Then 7,000 to 5,000 years ago with the introduction of agriculture and domesticated animals in the Neolithic Age lives were lived more frequently but still often spaced as much as 500 years apart. Between 1000 AD and 1500 AD his clients lived a life around every two centuries and beginning around the 1900s living more than one life in a century became more common. This makes sense with the opportunities for spiritual growth increasing during the 1900s and continuing to increase. People are now able to interact and learn from each other more easily than in the past due to living in larger communities and not needing to spend as much time focusing on survival, being able to travel more easily and the enormous advances in technology allowing people around the world to communicate with each other and have unprecedented access to information.

Why does it take so long to graduate and not have to reincarnate anymore? In any school the students will learn at different rates and find some lessons harder to learn than others. One of Michael Newton’s subjects had not been able to overcome envy while reincarnating for over 850 years. Another had spent nearly 1,700 years seeking power over others without success but had learned compassion. A sociopathic fraudulent medium might take 1,500 or more years to learn honesty and respect for people. During this debate on multiple occasions I have quoted from the book ’The Road Less Travelled' by M Scott Peck whose views on spiritual growth I believe people who want to speed up graduating from the earth school would find helpful. Another spiritual teacher who comes to mind is Eckhart Tolle (see: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=eckhart+tolle) whose teachings compliment those of Scott Peck. It’s one thing to recognise the value of the teachings of these or other spiritual teachers but it's entirely another matter to apply their ideas in your life to become a better person. The most effective way of learning for most if not all of us is from experience and reincarnation provides a mechanism for us to learn from experience with how long it takes to fulfil our potential as humans and graduate being up to us and how we respond to our life challenges.

I believe almost three-quarters of all souls who inhabit human bodies on Earth today are still in the early stages of development. I know this is a grossly discouraging statement because it means most of our human population is operating at the lower end of their training. On the other hand, when I consider a world population beset by so much negative cross-cultural misunderstanding and violence, I am not inclined to change my opinion about the high percentage of lower level souls on Earth. However, I do think each century brings improvement of awareness in all humans.

― Chapter 9 The Beginner Soul 'Journey of Souls' by Michael Newton​

Click to expand...

The facsimile of earth that Anthony Borgia and Silver Birch describe in detail that we reportedly live in between earth lives only gets a cursory mention in ‘Journey of Souls’ with a few of Michael Newton’s subjects recalling memories of familiar surroundings to those on earth greeting them and putting them at ease. This facsimile of earth appears to be a place created by advanced beings for souls in the beginning stage to ease their transition to the spirit world. Beginner souls are met by familiar people and live for a time in such a place while going through their life review before returning to earth to live their next incarnation. More advanced souls don’t need this sort of orientation and typically spend some time alone and/or with their guide reviewing the life just lived and then they proceed to their spiritual family. The members of this spiritual family may be involved in each other's earth lives playing various roles (spouses, children, aunts, uncles, friends, 'enemies' etc). Seth says a similar thing by the way in the book 'Seth Speaks'. Note here that if some souls in this family group advance quicker and leave the group no new souls are added to it.

Reading the book ‘Journey of Souls’ I get the impression that once you begin earth lives you can’t choose to no longer incarnate until you have developed your full abilities having human experiences with how long this takes being dependent of your rate of learning (you can take a temporary sideways detour however). Seth confirms this in ‘Seth Speaks’ saying that we have the option of exploring other realities as a kind of temporary sabbatical but once we begin having human experiences we have to reach our full potential incarnating in the physical dimension before we have the option to cease reincarnating or continue to incarnate to act as teachers.

Some simply find the physical system not to their liking, and in such a way take leave of it. This cannot be done, however, until the reincarnational cycle, once chosen, is completed, so the last choice exists for those who have developed their abilities through reincarnation as far as possible within that system.

Seth Speaks Chapter 11​

Click to expand...

Based on what Michael Newton’s subjects reveal reaching our full human potential (presumably level V) is a far lengthier and demanding process than most people believe. Seth was too tactful to reveal it but most of us appear to be destined to spend thousands of years coming here and living a great number of lives through the mechanism of reincarnation before we no longer need to reincarnate or we reach a level of awareness that gives us other options besides reincarnating. I must confess to finding this prospect daunting and a little depressing given that as you become more advanced the lessons get harder and are likely to involve more pain however whenever I’ve asked myself if I’d have made the spiritual progress that I have if I had been born into easier circumstances the answer is no. Ben Franklin was right when he said ‘that which hurts, also instructs’. Note here that one of Michael Newton’s subjects at the intermediate level III took 'only' 4,000 years (probably 10 to 15 lives) to reach it so the time it takes to no longer need to reincarnate varies according to how we respond to our life challenges and learn and grow from dealing with them.

Without addressing and overcoming pain you can never really connect with who you are and build on that. I must tell you, the more pain and adversity which come to you … the more opportunity to expand your potential.

― Case 22 'Journey of Souls' by Michael Newton​

Click to expand...

The book ‘Journey of Souls’ reveals some ways in which our guides attempt to help us and looking back at my own life I can see how help came to me at times when I was struggling with the help coming in ways that I could understand and which inspired me to keep going. The form of this help has changed in recent years becoming more direct reflecting my increasing awareness.

Guides only want the best for us and sometimes this means they must watch us endure much pain to reach certain objectives. Guides cannot assist in our progress until we are ready to make the necessary changes in order to take full advantage of life's opportunities.

― Chapter 8 Our Guides ‘Journey of Souls’ by Michael Newton​

Click to expand...

The book 'Journey of Souls' also confirms that all of us have an aura and that its colour reflects the level of spiritual evolution we are at with the colour white signifying a beginner soul, yellow signifying someone at an intermediate level and blue signifying someone at an advanced level who may be a guide helping others on earth while at the same time finishing off the last of unfinished business to do with incarnating on earth. If the aura is purple then it signifies someone advanced enough to lead other guides if the soul so chooses. Seth during one of his public sessions indicated that he could see that some of the people present had many reincarnational lives ahead before they graduated. I'm guessing that he could see from their auras that they were beginner souls.

The book also provides some insight into the character and value system of people at the higher levels and this sheds light on why, assuming that Michael Newton's findings are correct, it takes a very long time reincarnating on earth to reach level V and no longer needing to return here. Reading the book it was also clear that all souls are unique and have different abilities and possibly differing potentials as humans. The rate of progression of a soul in reaching its full human potential would depend on how the soul exercised its free will dealing with the life challenges associated with each incarnation.

I have been asked if most people who are sensitive, aesthetic, and particularly right brained have advanced souls since individuals with these characteristics often appear to be at odds with the wrongs of an imperfect world. I see no correlation here. Being emotional, appreciating beauty, or having extrasensory impressions including psychic talent-does not necessarily denote an advanced soul.

The mark of an advanced spirit is one who has patience with society and shows extraordinary coping skills. Most prominent is their exceptional insight. This is not to say life has no karmic pitfalls for them, otherwise the Level V probably wouldn't be here at all. They may be found in all walks of life, but are frequently in the helping professions or combating social injustice in some fashion. The advanced soul radiates composure, kindness, and understanding toward others. Not being motivated by self-interest, they may disregard their own physical needs and live in reduced circumstances.

― Chapter 11 The Advanced Soul ‘Journey of Souls’ by Michael Newton ​

Click to expand...

There is a conclusion that follows from what some of Michael Newton’s subjects at the advanced level reveal. Time and space do not exist in the spirit world the way they do here and the spirit world is already whole and a place for contemplation rather than growth and change. It is therefore not a conducive environment for beginner souls to mature into advanced souls. All That Is created dimensions outside of the spirit world with portals connecting to it as a means by which All That Is’ creations could grow and All That Is could also learn and grow through the feedback provided by All That Is’ creations. We are on the periphery of the spirit world by virtue of our undeveloped potential. The physical dimension is a classroom and we grow as a result of wrestling with our difficulties here and ideally return to the spirit world a little wiser and move a little closer to the source of creation. Conjunction with the source is the ultimate goal according to some of Michael Newton’s advanced subjects.

Perhaps the most gratifying feature of my work in uncovering the existence of a spirit world in the minds of my subjects is the effect this conscious knowledge has on them. The most significant benefit which comes from knowing we have a home of everlasting love waiting for us, is being receptive to the higher spiritual power within our minds. The awareness that we do belong somewhere is reassuring and offers us peace, not merely as a haven from conflict, but to unify ourselves with a universal mind. One day we are going to finish this long journey-all of us-and reach an ultimate state of enlightenment, where everything is possible.

Conclusion ‘Journey of Souls’ by Michael Newton ​

Click to expand...

Because of the valuable insights I’ve gained from reading the book when I’ve finished it I intend buying Michael Newton’s other books ‘Destiny of Souls’ and 'Life Between Lives'.

Readers need to make up their own mind about the many books available purporting to shed light on the spiritual dimension by comparing them with existing respected material such as the Seth material, the books by Anthony Borgia, Silver Birch etc. An example of such a comparison is Matthew in the book ‘Matthew, Tell Me About Heaven’ referring to beings that have never been human whom he calls 'angels' saying that they are in charge of running the physical universe and caring for our welfare. This correlates with what Michael Newton’s subjects have revealed under hypnosis and also with what Seth says in the book 'Seth Speaks'. Seth acknowledges the existence of 'beings who have never been human' and describes their role as 'guardians and custodians' of our system of reality. Here you have three different sources saying similar things.

I will tell you the truth as soon as I figure it out.

― Wayne Birmingham ​

Click to expand...

*****************************************​

Personal perspectives and resources that some readers might find useful

Rather than attending more séances hoping for a sign from a loved one or to have my beliefs reinforced I have enough evidence for an afterlife from existing sources for me to be confident that there is one. When I’ve attempted to persuade people that weren’t ready to accept the evidence for an afterlife I’ve been dismayed and discouraged at the responses. The process of spiritual growth involves a gradual unfolding of reality in a manner that is different for each person. I’ve learned that awareness can’t be forced on people that aren’t ready.

But because of your weakness, the various levels of existence merely prepare you and equip you for the experience of true reality, of which you have but a glimmering.

― Seth Session 35​

Click to expand...

The experience you have is the one that you are ready for. Many people around the world myself included have received personal signs that there is a spiritual dimension that our soul goes to when our body dies such as the incident I described towards the end of this topic on pages 8 and 11 where I recounted how I attempted to contact my mother in the spirit dimension and to my surprise and delight I received a response. All of the searching I’d done over many years and the séances I attended prior to the incident prepared me for what happened so that I was capable of appreciating its significance. Had I not been ready I don’t believe it would have happened or if it had it would have gone over my head as it did for the sceptics that responded cynically to my interpretation of it.

I’ve also had a couple of other possible similar signs hinting that I may have had a spirit guide on the other side watching as I composed my posts in this topic. An example is my post on page 11 where I described my neighbour as a ‘lowlife and a moron’. The original words I wrote were ‘nincompoop and a mental degenerate’! The instant I finished typing those words something behind me moved. I spun around to see that a large metal scoop that I use to clean my cat’s litter tray that was sitting in the middle of a wooden storage box on top of a bookcase about a metre from me had moved. The metal scoop had no reason to do this and had never done this before and I burst into laughter and said out loud 'okay I’ll change it!’ and then I slightly watered down the nasty description of my neighbour to 'lowlife and a moron'! Since I slightly watered down my description my neighbour from my viewpoint has continued to confirm that my description is accurate.

Why only the slight watering down of my original nasty description of my neighbour? Because I’ve seen my neighbour do many despicable, nasty and cruel things aimed at me and others over a number of years. From my viewpoint the changed description of my neighbour (who after reading the book 'Journey of Souls' I'm guessing is a beginner soul) was accurate and I’m entitled to my opinion. I call a spade a spade. The call for people to love others unconditionally is unrealistic. Only God (and perhaps highly spiritually advanced people) can do that. In order to be loved in the sense that the word love is typically meant one needs to be loveable. My neighbour isn’t currently particularly lovable but perhaps in some future life he will be.

Note here that there are broader definitions for the word love such as the way that Scott Peck defines love in his book ‘The Road Less Travelled’ as ‘the will to extend oneself for one’s own or another’s spiritual growth’. I don’t even find my neighbour loveable in the Scott Peck sense because any energy expended on my neighbour is wasted. When for instance I showed my neighbour this debate he wasn’t interested in exploring it and told me that there is no afterlife. I now understand that the likely explanation for my guide prompting me (assuming that's what it was) to tone down my original nasty description of my neighbour was because my guide was looking at my neighbour from the perspective of the person he may become in the future and also distinguishing between his behaviour and the inherent value of his soul. The best I can do with ‘unlovable’ people at my current level of spiritual evolution is leave them be. Like is attracted to like on the other side. The principle operates on this side as well except not as precisely because people can hide their true selves behind personas.

Was it just coincidence that the metal cat litter tray scoop moved an instant after I wrote the very unflattering words about my neighbour or was it a spirit guide on the other side giving me a sign not to use such nasty words to describe my neighbour? It was ambiguous as are many possible signs from the spirit dimension that people have reported. I didn’t mention this incident in the debate with other members of this forum because I thought that the strongly sceptical members would argue that I was an idiot for interpreting such an event this way. If it was a prompting from a spirit guide to change what I’d written (I’ll find out for sure when I experience my life review after I die) it reflects how far I’ve come in my journey of spiritual growth. I also acknowledge that it could have just been a random event with my interpretation being wishful thinking.

A second similar incident happened some time after the above one when I typed words on my computer to the effect that none of us can be absolutely certain that there’s an afterlife and the instant I finished typing the words I heard a sound behind me. I spun around and I saw that a large plastic bottle full of water that I’d placed on the table behind me had fallen off and split and was leaking water onto the carpet. My first reaction was to wonder if my cat might have been responsible but the cat was nowhere to be seen & if it knocked the bottle off the table I’d have heard him jump off the table as I turned around. There’s also no way that I would have placed the bottle right on the edge of the table where it might fall off so the timing of the event a moment after I finished typing the words made me wonder if a spirit observer watching me as I typed was reminding me that there definitely is an afterlife. I suspect this to be the case but I could be wrong!

I’ve had other incidents (some similar to the above mentioned ones and some different) happen while I’ve continued to refine and add to this post and wrestle with issues like whether or not to name specific mediums that I believed to be frauds (I didn’t do it lightly) and criticise a couple of people in the manner I did (again I didn’t do it lightly) etc. All of the incidents were helpful and if they were prompts from a spirit guide in the afterlife dimension to assist me (I believe they were but I can’t be certain) then it suggests that the spirit world supports seekers of truth. The incidents were like gentle hints but leaving it up to me to decide how I resolved an issue I was wrestling with. They may have come from a spirit guide which we all have based on my reading of the book ‘Journey of Souls’ by Michael Newton. As a result I’ve concluded that our spirit guide knows what we are thinking and our character and that there are no secrets on the other side.

One of the incidents that I believe was a prompt from my guide has led to a lifestyle change that has resulted in a noticeable improvement in my health both physical and emotional. The prompt was an amazing one which I won’t attempt to describe on a forum such as this because I fear that I wouldn’t be believed! My body has for years been becoming gradually more arthritic and the thought of potentially living to an old age was not something I looked forward to. The lifestyle change I made as a result of the prompt I received has eased this concern considerably. Our guides appear to not only know our character and thoughts but also the state of our physical health and what we should be doing to stay healthy and they have a range of ways of communicating with us. As my awareness of the spirit world has increased the communication from the other side has become more overt in line with my increasing ability to take advantage of prompts rather than dismiss them as random events.

An incident that led me to conclude that our spirit guides may be able to tune in to what we are thinking when we are wrestling with issues important to us occurred recently when I pondered why Victor Zammit would claim that he’s a physical medium in daily contact with the spirit world when the way that he promotes mediums suggests otherwise. If Victor’s claim was true then he wouldn’t have promoted Gary Mannion before he was exposed as a fraud because the spirit world would have warned him that Mannion was a fraud. The thought occurred to me that Victor had become over confident during his years of producing his Friday Afterlife Weekly Report in relation to his ability to assess which mediums are credible evidence for the existence of the spirit world and which aren’t. When it comes to assessing mediums the thought crossed my mind that Victor might have delusions of grandeur. Lamar Keene in his book The Psychic Mafia has another name for it-true believer syndrome.

People with delusions of grandeur or that suffer from true believer syndrome ‘know' the truth and don’t need to check evidence the way that juries do in trials. I don’t know the truth so I forensically analyse evidence in relation to mediums considering alternate possibilities and trying to remain objective as I do this. When I heard Victor Zammit speaking to the 'spirits' of Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at séances conducted by David Thompson I believe that Victor had no doubt whatsoever that the voices he heard were the spirit voices of Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Based on the way that Victor Zammit promotes David Thompson it's a safe bet to say that the fact that the voices bore no resemblance to that of the real Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle when they lived on earth didn't matter to Victor. It mattered a great deal to me however because unlike true believers like Victor I live in the real world and I know that there are many people in society that routinely deceive others and don’t feel the slightest guilt about doing so including some mediums.

The instant the thought occurred to me that Victor could be suffering from 'delusions of grandeur' or true believer syndrome in relation to assessing mediums there was a sound behind me as I stood in my kitchen cleaning my stove. I spun around and saw that one of three stove switches I’d placed on the kitchen bench located against an adjacent wall had fallen onto the floor and was in the process of bouncing as I watched it. Because it happened the instant I had the thought I wondered if my guide might be confirming that my assessment was correct. If that's the case then our guides can read some of our thoughts if not all of them! Coincidence or a sign from my guide? I don't know. Note that the previous description I gave of this incident was inaccurate. The switch didn’t somehow go over the 3 cm lip of a stainless steel basin. I was hazy on whether I'd placed the switches on the stainless steel basin or the laminate benchtop next to it. They were on the laminate bench top and one went over the edge as I had the thought. It bounced unusually by the way-almost as if in slow motion and higher than it should have and I couldn't replicate the height by dropping it. The only sign that I'm certain came from the spirit world was the one in relation to me attempting to communicate with my deceased mother. The others (especially this one as it came after a thought) could have been random events with me interpreting them based on my own confirmation basis.

This method of communication which may have come from my guide (I acknowledge that they could have been random events) has stopped since I finished writing the main message of my post (I still occasionally do minor tweaks and edits). Based on my reading of Michael Newton’s book ‘Journey of Souls’ all of us go through a life review in the presence of our guide/guides (some of us apparently have two guides) when we arrive back home so both Victor and I will find out what the truth is then. Victor Zammit doesn’t believe that he needs to analyse evidence in relation to mediums using the method that juries use to determine if they are genuine before he promotes them as evidence for the existence of the spirit world. While I believe that the spirit world supports his efforts to raise public consciousness of the reality of an afterlife I don’t believe that it supports him promoting mediums this way.

In a recent weekly Friday Afterlife Report Victor showed a photo of outer space and wrote that some people who look at it see 'mud' and others see 'beauty'. I see both mud and beauty when I look at the physical universe because they both comprise reality. There are worse examples of mud but one example is fraudulent mediums that for over 150 years have enriched themselves financially by exploiting gullible peoples’ need to believe and the tendency of people who go to séances to ‘see’ what they expect to see. Promoting mediums in support of a belief in the afterlife without checking them carefully using the method that juries use in trials to determine if they are genuine isn’t seeing ‘beauty’. People who check the evidence carefully and conclude that a medium is most likely a fraud aren’t people who see ‘mud’. People that will only accept mediums as evidence for an afterlife if they stand the test of forensic scrutiny are in my view doing the spirit world and the public a service by helping to distinguish false evidence (mud) from credible evidence (beauty).

If Victor reads this my criticism is not intended to be personal. I believe that Victor has done a fine job of raising public awareness of evidence for the afterlife apart from one area; the way that he promotes mediums which I have criticised him for and I admit not always tactfully. A couple of the prompts I’ve received that might have come from my spirit guide hinted that I need to be more tactful when criticising people. Despite making some effort to do this perfecting the art of being tactful may have to wait for a future life! Some of the material that Victor has presented in his Friday Afterlife Weekly Reports has been very helpful to me particularly evidence for reincarnation as a mechanism by which we grow spiritually. I'm sure that I'm not alone in this and that Victor has helped raise the consciousness of many people in relation to evidence for life after death. Australian hypnotherapist Peter Ramster whose work and findings Victor included in several of his weekly reports convinced me that we all reincarnate and the book ‘Journey of Souls’ by Michael Newton has shed considerably more light on this.

It matters not who is right. It matters what is right.

― Reuben F Scarf​

Click to expand...

I'm certain by the way that the incident I recounted on pages 8 and 11 describing how I attempted to contact my mother in the spirit dimension and I received an unexpected response wasn't a random event. It was unambiguously a response from the spirit dimension however convincing closed minded sceptics that it was a response from the other side is another matter!

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

―Nietzsche​

Click to expand...

I’m now able to give a perspective on why I received the response from the spirit world that I recounted on pages 8 and 11. When I attempted the communication I said that I appreciated all of the many little acts of love that my mother showed towards her children during her life while suffering from severe mental illness and that she is not forgotten. I also said that I wanted her to enjoy her new life exploring the spirit world and not to worry about her family on this side. I said this because I didn’t want my mother to feel bad about the way that her illness impacted on her family. I finished by saying that I wanted her to know that I wouldn’t swap her for any other mother. By saying these things I showed that I recognised the preciousness of the gift of love that my mother had given to her children while suffering from a terrible handicap. Instead of being angry and bitter about being born into a family situation with a severely mentally ill mother (and a father who was borderline mentally ill and did nothing to protect his children) I had accepted my life challenges, grown from wrestling with them and learned what matters most in life-love and spiritual growth.

A split second after saying that I wanted my mother to know that I wouldn’t swap her for any other mother my guide responded in the dark pushing a box containing toner cartridges (which had been sitting undisturbed on a cabinet for around 4 years) causing the box to fall to the floor and the toner cartridges to spill out. Then when I asked for something else in the room to be moved to confirm that the box falling over was a response from the spirit world and not just a random event my guide granted my request and moved another object (as I explained in detail on pages 8 and 11). My cat who was lying next to me and I both turned our heads spontaneously in perfect unison towards the part of the room where we heard something make a sliding sound. Had my cat not turned his head too I might have concluded that I imagined it. I recounted the incident not long after it occurred without understanding its significance. Spiritual growth involves a gradual unfolding of the meaning of our existence and now I believe that I at least to some extent understand the significance of what happened that night.

Throughout this debate I’ve pointed out that evidence for the existence of the spirit world is often subtle but subtle does not mean not significant. This incident is an example of this. While it wasn’t an earth shattering event in the bigger scheme of things it had great personal significance to me and resulted in me being confident that there is a spirit world awaiting us when we die. As a result of this small personal event now when I walk through shopping centres and see other shoppers I sometimes find myself thinking, ‘I know something you don’t know!’ namely that we are all souls that happen to be having a human experience. When I recount the incident to people as evidence for an afterlife most have dismissed it as proving nothing. This is understandable in the light of Michael Newton's finding that over 70% of people on earth are beginner souls.

Leaders are readers.

― Charles Jones, American Motivational Speaker, Author​

Click to expand...

Reading the book ‘Journey of Souls’ by Michael Newton and learning that each of us has a guide led me to conclude that the response that night came from my guide. This may (I acknowledge that they were ambiguous) also apply to the instances of objects moving at precise moments while I wrestled with issues that I’ve also recounted. The incident that I described on pages 8 and 11 where I tried to communicate with my deceased mother in the spirit world was not ambiguous; that was a response from the spirit world and one that I'll always be grateful for receiving. Based on what Michael Newton's subjects have revealed we all have a guide. Mine appears to have made his/her presence known to me at least for a time. These events gave me the opportunity to pass on my experience to anyone that might benefit. I’m a realist however and I know that humans primarily learn through personal experience rather than reading about someone else’s experience. If anyone benefitted from reading about my experience well and good. If not I at least did.

My experience has resulted in me being confident that there's an afterlife but what it's like remains to be seen. I’m not referring here to the pleasant facsimile of earth along with loved ones that beginner souls may see on arrival in the spirit world to make them feel comfortable. I believe that this may have been created by the advanced beings who are guardians and custodians of our system of reality as a way of making the transition after death feel comfortable for those at the beginner levels of spiritual evolution. What primarily interests me is the reality behind the illusions. A part of us (our ego) appears to be in a kind of 'simulation game' involving having human experiences. The 'game' has rules and a purpose and our progress appears to be being monitored by a guide appointed to each of us who is able to assist us in various ways. Like it or not the game hurts with the pain and challenges we encounter as we play it pushing us to grow. How quickly we reach the higher levels is up to us and what awaits us beyond that is a mystery. Whether the rewards for playing the game (we have no choice but to play so it's a moot point) are worth it remains to be seen but the primary place that love has in it suggests that the rewards will be worth it. As far as true reality goes Seth says that we only have a tiny inkling of it so there is much to be discovered. All of this is nonsense according to the closed minded sceptics on the forum who say that we are just clever animals with oblivion awaiting us when we die. The objective evidence I've presented for reincarnation alone suggests that they are wrong!

I believe that there is enough sound evidence for the afterlife to satisfy open minded people without needing to promote mediums and phenomena observed at séances that don’t stand up to close scrutiny and which when viewed by the general public leads many to conclude that believers in the afterlife are gullible people that are easily conned. An example of this is promoting Helen Duncan as a genuine medium on the basis of her correctly revealing that a ship had sunk before it was made public. When members of the public check her out using Google they find a photo of her taken at one of her séances with cloth coming from her mouth connected to a crude doll. Anyone that views this could be excused for thinking that anyone that promotes her as evidence for the afterlife is a half-wit. Many fraudulent mediums are a lot cleverer at deceiving the public than Helen Duncan was at that séance but they are still frauds.

People that are willing to make the effort to carefully examine the evidence are able to work out that there is an afterlife but I believe that the world as a whole at this point in time is not meant to have awareness of such a thing imposed on it. The awareness is in my opinion meant to arise from each person’s individual journey of spiritual growth.

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

― Jesus Christ​

Click to expand...

Following on from what I wrote above about my neighbour (who I find obnoxious) psychiatrist Scott Peck who I’ve quoted often in my posts wrote a book ‘A World Waiting to be Born-Civility Rediscovered’ in which he outlines a vision for communities and a return to civility here on earth rather than waiting until we get to the other side and live with our own kind. It’s an idealistic vision and unlikely to happen anytime soon given the way the world is but it’s worth a listen to. An audio version of the book read by Scott Peck can be downloaded using the link below. The book is better than the audio because the audio leaves out some of the case studies that Peck wrote about in the book but it’s worth a listen to:

Psychiatrist Scott Peck also wrote a book on human evil called 'People of the Lie: The hope for healing human evil'. All evil people have one thing in common-they are all excessively narcissistic and would do anything to protect their self-esteem and avoid having the spotlight shone on their characters (such people are presumably in for a rough time when they watch their life review on the other side!) I don’t agree with part 3 of the book concerning demonic possession (because I don't believe there is a devil) but the first two parts give a fascinating insight into what makes evil people tick with Peck using case studies of people that he encountered as a psychiatrist. Some of these people are quite disturbing. You can download audio of the book by clicking on the link below:

Audio of Scott Peck reading the book that he is most well-known for that millions of people around the world have read and benefitted from ‘The Road Less Travelled’ can be downloaded by clicking on the following link:

’The Road Less Travelled: A new psychology of love, traditional values and spiritual growth’ by M Scott Peck:

What have the above books got to do with the afterlife? A lot. We are repeatedly told that people live in communities in the afterlife based on similar psychological states with like living with like e.g. vicious greedy people with their own kind and caring generous people with their own kind etc.

Several people that I have met during my life have stood out as showing me what sort of community I’d like to live in on the other side. One was Scott Peck with his books on spiritual growth. The book ‘A World Waiting to be Born-Civility Rediscovered’ explores what makes healthy communities and is relevant as we will live in communities on the other side. The book 'People of the Lie: The hope for healing human evil' dares to examine the sort of people that most of us wouldn’t want to live in community with on the other side. Neither goodness nor evil can be stereotyped and in my experience the less spiritually evolved a person is the more prone he/she is to doing just that. It’s possible that some people may be genetically predisposed to acting in a way that is generally regarded as evil so we shouldn’t be too judgmental about such matters.

As well as Scott Peck another person that taught me what sort of community I’d like to live in on arriving in the spirit dimension was one of the many young people I met in the course of my career-a young girl around 13 years old, plain looking (but beautiful on the inside) and labelled as slightly below average intelligence (I came to see her as gifted in ways that intelligence tests don't measure however) who was unusually honest, warm, friendly, vivacious, positive and full of the joy of life. She was part of a little group of like-minded friends her age and she was the person in the group that the others most looked up to despite others in the group being brighter than her.

One day I happened to be in a room with a number of young people including this girl when one of her friends came looking for her. When her friend came into the room the girl looked up from the board game that she was playing and on seeing her friend said, ‘hello beautiful’ in an innocent, sincere, unselfconscious way and then went back to focussing on her board game. The reason this delightful girl was the natural leader of the little community to which she belonged was that she valued all of her friends and showed it unashamedly in the way that she treated them. All members of that little community valued each other regardless of looks, intelligence level etc and they didn't look for weaknesses and faults and ways to take advantage of each other. My mentally ill mother had a child's honesty and she taught me to value qualities like honesty and caring for others so I appreciated why this little community worked and was such a happy one.

In contrast my neighbour who I referred to as a 'lowlife and a moron' in a later post makes out that you are his ‘new best friend’ when he wants something from you but after he gets what he wants his attitude changes to one of condescension, contempt or occasional sneaky (because he’s a coward) cruel, vicious behaviour. Then the next time that he wants something from you he once again feigns friendship until he gets what he wants and then he reverts back to his true underlying nature. This kind of deception is not possible in the afterlife dimension.

Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

― Jesus Christ​

Click to expand...

I’m not suggesting by the way that my vision of the community I’d like to live in on the other side is one consisting of people with childlike minds. Jesus in the next quote below points to the sort of people I’d like to live in community with in the spirit dimension.

*****************************************​

Final observations and conclusions regarding evidence for the afterlife

I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and innocent as doves.

― Jesus Christ​

Click to expand...

You need to have your wits about you when looking at evidence for the afterlife. There is a smorgasbord of information out there along with fraudulent mediums and people claiming things that may or may not be true. How do you separate the baby from the bathwater and the wheat from the chaff? That’s a question every person seriously interested in this important subject has to consider and answer for themselves. I believe that the exposure of Gary Mannion's fraudulent behaviour has done those exploring the question of whether there's an afterlife a service by highlighting the need to maintain a healthy scepticism and not allow one’s desire to believe to override one's objectivity resulting in being misled. Having said that even the most scrupulous and perceptive of us makes mistakes and this is part of the learning experience.

A substantial body of credible evidence much of it cross checkable that supports the existence of an afterlife has come through over the last 150 years and there is now enough material to fill a library. The evidence has also become more refined as people have become capable of understanding more elegant and complex concepts e.g. the Seth material which impressed me so much. Much of the evidence for an afterlife is subtle (which is just as you'd expect it to be and subtle does not mean not significant) and some of it is objectively verifiable using scientific methods. No single piece of evidence proves the existence of the afterlife unequivocally in a way that closed minded sceptical people demand in order to be convinced however when all of the evidence is looked at as a whole it points to the existence of an afterlife.

Science is beginning to hint of the possibility of an afterlife with quantum mechanics experiments suggesting that matter at the sub atomic level requires a conscious observer before it can exist. This supports the idea that consciousness is primary and that consciousness did not come from matter but rather preceded it and that our bodies are a vehicle for expressing consciousness in corporeal form rather than the body being the source of consciousness. The evidence for an afterlife indicates that our consciousness continues in another dimension after our bodies wear out and our consciousness reviews what it learned while in this other dimension after which it returns here for further learning experiences in a new body.

Seth the highly evolved spirit personality channelled through medium Jane Roberts reveals that 'matter is psychic energy that forms a physical pattern'. The use of the word ‘psychic’ here infers that matter is energy responding to consciousness. The idea of our universe existing without a conscious observer to validate it is absurd when you think about it. Consciousness didn’t just create the universe at the big bang and then leave it to run itself consciousness continually vivifies the universe in every moment of ‘time’. Remove consciousness from the universe and you would not have a universe. You would not even have nothing. The vacuum in space for instance is something. It is empty space defined by the matter scattered through it and requires a conscious observer to define it this way. Consciousness is fundamental to the universe and it could not have been created without it or exist now without it.

Your planetary systems exist at once, simultaneously, both in time and in space. The universe that you seem to perceive, either visually or through instruments, appears to be composed of galaxies, stars, and planets, at various distances from you. Basically, however, this is an illusion. Your senses and your very existence as physical creatures program you to perceive the universe in such a way. The universe as you know it is your interpretation of events as they intrude upon your three-dimensional reality. The events are mental.

When I enter your system, I move through a series of mental and psychic events. You would interpret these events as space and time, and so often I must use the terms, for I must use your language rather than my own.

Root assumptions are those built-in ideas of reality of which I spoke — those agreements upon which you base your ideas of existence. Space and time, for example, are root assumptions. Each system of reality has its own set of such agreements. When I communicate within your system, I must use and understand the root assumptions upon which it is based. As a teacher it is part of my job to understand and use these, and I have had existences in many such systems as a part of what you may call my basic training; though in your terms my associates and I had other names for them.

Perhaps it is better to say that physical reality is one form that reality takes. In your system, however, you are focused much more intensely upon one relatively small aspect of experience.

― Seth Speaks The Eternal Validity of the Soul​

Click to expand...

Most people see the universe as something 'out there' and consciousness as something temporary arising out of the universe spontaneously through some unknown blind mechanical process with their consciousness ceasing to exist after they die. In reality it's the other way round with the universe arising out of consciousness and the universe itself being conscious with humans defining consciousness too narrowly.

The rocks and stones and mountains and earth are living camouflage, interlocking psychic webs formed by minute consciousnesses that you cannot perceive as such. The atoms and molecules within them have their own consciousness, as do the atoms and molecules with your body.

― Seth Speaks The Eternal Validity of the Soul​

Click to expand...

When I was young I occasionally wrestled with the conundrum of space apparently being infinite and its alternative space having a boundary. How could space be infinite? It seemed impossible but it equally seemed impossible that space could have a boundary. The same conundrum applied to time-how could time have no beginning or end? These contradictions are resolved when you understand that space and time don’t exist as we think they do and are ‘root assumptions’ used by consciousness to interpret our physical dimension with consciousness itself being the ultimate bedrock reality.

Seth says that time is not what we think it is and that the past, present and future are all happening simultaneously. This seems impossible from our current perspective but I once had a peculiar experience that backs up what Seth claims. One night in the living room of my parents’ house after coming home from work exhausted and watching TV I spontaneously went into a kind of hypnotic trance like state and on seeing that Powerball was about to be drawn I said to myself-I wonder if I can pick the numbers?

I had a pen and piece of paper handy and suddenly a vision of a number appeared before my eyes. I wrote the number down and I watched the barrel turn and a ball with my number come out. Then another number appeared as a vision before my eyes and I again watched a ball with my number come out of the barrel. This happened four times in a row with the visions showing me the correct numbers drawn out of the barrel live on TV. Then my ego strongly reminded me that what I was doing was impossible and the visions stopped! My ego had reasserted itself and I was back seeing the world according to the conventional rules one of them being that time happens sequentially not simultaneously. What shocked me was that the Powerball draw was being shown live on TV so I had seen something that according to the conventional view of time hadn’t happened yet!

Peter Ramster in one of his books tells the story of how a man that he hypnotised watched the weekend horse races being run in his mind. After the race meeting occurred on the weekend the man was amazed when he checked the results and discovered that he’d correctly seen the winners of all of the races while under hypnosis in Peter Ramster’s office days earlier!

Could this mean that Seth's claim that the past, present and future are happening simultaneously is correct but we can only see this after we have finished our reincarnational lives and reached a certain stage of spiritual evolution? This seems impossible from our current situation however if one thinks of the past present and future as all being part of an information field containing all probable and possible outcomes and we reach a stage of spiritual evolution that enables us to look from above and see the information field the way that Seth apparently did when speaking through Jane Roberts then it may well turn out to be true. At present our ego is experiencing our current life in the physical dimension. Our unconscious however may be aware of the larger information field and be able to see the choices that we are making in this and our other reincarnational lives.

Seth says that our lives in the physical dimension are like a play that we agreed to be part of but like absent minded professors we have forgotten that we wrote the play! As I see it our egos are the part of us that are caught up in the drama of the play while our unconscious together with the unconscious of all others (the collective unconscious) wrote the play or had a hand in writing it and is learning from the experiences that our egos are having.

You are the creator of yourself in space and time.

― Seth Session 697​

Click to expand...

The term ‘All that is’ has been used in this debate to denote the creator behind this and all other universes, systems and fields (most of which we currently can't perceive). ‘All that is’ is an appropriate term because 'All that is' appears to be literally all that is. According to Seth 'All that is' doesn’t know whether any other primary energy gestalts like Itself exist and is unaware of Its own origins i.e. whether It evolved from another primary energy gestalt. If Seth is right then there remain questions that no-one within our system including 'All that is' knows the answers to. If ‘All that is’ evolved from another primary energy gestalt then what did that primary energy gestalt evolve from?

Each of us appears to be a minute form of consciousness within the all-encompassing consciousness of ‘All that is’. We are fractals containing all of the elements of the greater consciousness but in latent undeveloped form. We are not puppets and we have the gift of free will and can grow or not grow our consciousness according to how we exercise our free will. This is the nub of the message in the book ‘Seth Speaks-The Eternal Validity of the Soul’ which you can download by clicking on the link below if you haven't already using an earlier link I gave.

Your closest approximation of the purpose of the universe can be found in those loving emotions that you have toward the development of your children, in your intent to have them develop their fullest capacities.

― Seth Session 882​

Click to expand...

My own personal experience backs up what Seth says in the above quote. This topic ended before I had a chance to tell a particular personal story supporting my assertion that the universe is beneficent and that if we keep struggling help can come through when we need it. Without going into specific details when I was living with my mentally ill parents there was a point when I found the burden becoming intolerable. It was obvious to people at the place I worked that I was stressed and struggling and many were judging me negatively as being ‘weak’ among other things.

One day I was sitting at my desk at work during a break and thinking to myself 'I can’t do this anymore I’m at the end of my coping ability and I don’t know what to do'. Suddenly out of the blue I felt an inner prompting to pick up a book from the many books on the shelf above me and to open it and read it. I obeyed the prompting and on opening the book that had I chosen I found a short story called ‘The Broken Places’.

It was the story of a young girl who was the victim of cruel gossip by people in the town that she lived in who like me was struggling to cope and was contemplating moving away to try and escape her situation. An old wise man who knew that she was struggling lovingly advised her that ‘you can’t run away from the wind’ and that when wounds heal the scar tissue becomes stronger than surrounding tissue. He assured her that in time her suffering would ease and she would emerge stronger for the experience.

I recognised the parallel with my own situation and the story gave me the strength to go on. Eventually after many more years of struggle on my part the emotional wounds I had from dealing with situations I found intolerable healed to a certain extent with the scar tissue stronger than the surrounding tissue and here I am with enough self-confidence to debate this topic on a forum of sceptics and infuriate some of them because what I say can't be easily dismissed!

I believe that the prompting to pick up the book and open it to the page where the story 'The Broken Places' was located was not a random event as many on this forum would claim. In my view the prompting came from either my ‘higher self’ or my guide that knew I needed support otherwise I might have had a nervous breakdown from which I might not have recovered.

The world breaks everyone, and afterwards many are stronger at the broken places.

– Ernest Hemingway ​

Click to expand...

One of the lessons I've learned in this current life is that people do all sorts of terrible things to each other every day without knowing it (hopefully they also do some good things). There are also people who do terrible things to others and know it and don't care. After reading Michael Newton's book 'Journey of Souls' I understand that such people are beginner souls with many incarnations ahead of them to learn to become better people. This is one reason why we experience a life review before returning here for more lessons with the review showing how our behaviour affected others and showing us aspects of our character that we need to develop so that we hopefully won't do as many awful things to others without knowing it the next time round! One lifetime is therefore not enough to learn what is required for us to graduate from this earth school.

Past life regressions is an example of evidence for the afterlife that can be objectively verified and past life memories from many people have been checked for authenticity in a careful scientific manner by numerous researchers such as Peter Ramster, Brian Weiss and many others with results indicating that we do indeed reincarnate returning here multiple times. After fulfilling our potential as humans what awaits us after that is somewhat of a mystery but it appears to be more of a mental world where you have no form so to speak but still have consciousness. If this is the case then what that is like is anyone’s guess. Seth channelled through medium Jane Roberts does attempt to convey what it’s like to have consciousness without a solid physical form from his viewpoint as a highly advanced spirit entity, in the book ‘Seth Speaks-The Eternal Validity of the Soul’.

Another example of evidence for the afterlife that can be objectively verified are some aspects of near death experiences. An estimated 10 million people worldwide have had near death experiences yet sceptics routinely dismiss these as 'anecdotal stories' and 'hallucinations' having no significance despite these experiences being coherent, highly meaningful in the context in which they occur and having common stages. These stages typically consist of some or all of the following-floating above your lifeless body and observing what’s going on, travelling through a tunnel or a portal to another dimension at great speed, being greeted by deceased loved ones, meeting a being of light, experiencing a profound feeling of unconditional love and experiencing a life review. If the near death experiences were hallucinations as the sceptics claim they are they would consist of rambling, incoherent, chaotic and unintelligible gibberish with none of the common stages that near death experiences have.

Numerous recorded cases exist of people who were able to accurately describe in detail what occurred around them while they were clinically dead after finding themselves floating above their lifeless bodies looking down on events with these descriptions being verified as accurate by doctors, nurses or bystanders who tried to resuscitate them. Sceptics who dismiss such evidence are as guilty of checking their brains at the door as people who attend séances and unthinkingly and unquestioningly accept everything that is presented to them.

Could the more advanced and evolved beings that reportedly reside in higher dimensions and that care about us remove all ambiguity and uncertainty by making the existence of the afterlife known to all here on earth in such a way that no-one could deny its reality? I suspect that they could but not knowing for certain and having difficulties to deal with and a ‘deadline’ (death) provide the necessary driving force that we need to propel us to strive and make the most of our time here before our ‘deadline’ is up. For this and no doubt other reasons the higher up beings choose not to completely remove all uncertainty however this may change in the future perhaps through advances in technology such as electronic voice phenomena or EVP and Instrumental TransCommunication or ITC.

While technology like EVP and ITC communication may in the future be used as an aid to reveal more about the afterlife, technology is clearly not required for this to happen. The huge amount of profound material produced by genuine mediums shows this. If consciousness is the fundamental basis of everything that exists and the spirit dimension is primarily a mental world then like it or not thought is the most powerful available means of communication between ours and the spirit dimension. Marcello Bacci comes to mind here. When researchers removed the vacuum tubes from Bacci’s old radio which he apparently uses to tune in voices from the other side the voices still came through the radio so a functioning radio was not necessary. All the beings in the spirit dimension apparently required was a medium like Bacci and a receptive audience of people eager for contact and the conscious will on the part of spirit beings to project voices from their dimension into ours. The voices come through to comfort people who gather with Bacci around his radio hoping to hear the voice of a loved one and to confirm the existence of the spirit dimension. Bacci appears to be a true medium and his gatherings around his radio are séances during which spirit beings from the spirit dimension reveal their presence.

Each plane in spirit existence is partly hidden from the plane below, because the conditions of each change make it best for the soul to fit itself for progression without absolute knowledge of the next step.

A degree of uncertainty about the afterlife appears to be an intentional part of the system and it’s likely that some uncertainty will always exist. More about the spirit dimension will no doubt be revealed but in my opinion not to the extent that all uncertainty disappears. This I believe will be done gradually in line with what people are capable of understanding and accepting. If all people were certain that there is an afterlife it would be like knowing some of the answers to a test before doing the test and many wouldn’t try as hard to learn the lessons set for them. If we knew for certain that there is an afterlife some people whose particular life challenges are extremely difficult would be tempted to give up and wait for the relief waiting on the other side or even check out completely intending to negotiate an easier next life instead of wrestling with their challenges and learning valuable lessons and growing spiritually in the process.

Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn.

― M. Scott Peck The Road Less Travelled A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth​

Click to expand...

Despite not being able to prove the existence of an afterlife scientifically in a way that is unequivocal and that would satisfy all but the most closed minded sceptics (nothing could convince them!) there is a large body of evidence supporting its existence that I liken to being like pieces of a complex jigsaw puzzle. The more one studies the evidence the more one is able to glimpse of the vast wondrous creation and the unfathomable intelligence responsible for it (which is also embedded in it) that this puzzle represents. Instead of waiting for science to provide answers that it arguably will never be able to provide there is I believe enough evidence for people with the courage and willingness to explore the unknown with a discerning open mind to conclude that death is merely the end of a chapter of a never ending story!

The huge volume of material and the breadth and scope of what it covers and its consistency makes it almost inconceivable that Roberts and her husband could make up such material for profit

Click to expand...

Do you count that as evidence? What about religion books? What about science-fiction works like Starwars/Startrek? They are all quite convincing yet fictional. When people watch movies they have suspension of disbelief. its the same thing with your guy there.

Since we are factually mammals you would require some amazing evidence to show how we are special!

I wouldn't be so sure that humans are not special. The most sophisticated and provocative material I've read on the meaning of life and man's true nature is the Seth material by Jane Roberts. Roberts claimed to have channelled a spirit entity who came through spontaneously one night as Roberts and her husband experimented with using a ouija board of all things and once contact had been established this entity (who was once human but had evolved beyond the human reincarnational stage) whom Roberts called Seth (an appropriate name since Seth I believe was the name of Adam's first born in the bible!) came through regularly. Roberts claimed to have no recollection of anything that occurred during each channelling session and when she and her husband realised what was happening Robert's husband dictated what Seth said through his wife while she was in trance. Over many 100s of these sessions Seth reveals the nature of reality, why we are here and our destiny. What was revealed is detailed, mind boggling, voluminous (the Seth material spans over 16 books) yet consistent and non contradictory all the way through. I've also seen a scientist quoted as saying that the Seth material is consistent and compatible with discoveries in quantum physics. The huge volume of material and the breadth and scope of what it covers and its consistency makes it almost inconceivable that Roberts and her husband could make up such material for profit and if what Seth reveals is true we are more special than any of us ever imagined.

You can download a free copy of the first book 'Seth Speaks' from the link below and the second link gives an overall impression of the sort of things revealed by Seth. Call it bullshit if you like but if it is then it was made up by a brilliant mind that was careful not to contradict him or herself over a huge volume of material. Christians by the way have labelled Seth as demonic because Seth implies that we are more special than we ever dreamed and that our true nature viewed from our current perspective is God like and the universe we live in more mysterious than we could ever imagine.

There is no doubt that there are quantum aspects to our brains, we are building quantum computers along similar principles. I however call horse fluff on this particular article, it just reads terribly and it certainly doesn't sound like almost a decade of "research" went into it.

From the point of view of consciousness theory, an essential feature of Penrose's objective reduction is that the choice of states when objective reduction occurs is selected neither randomly, as are choices following measurement or decoherence, nor completely algorithmically. Rather, states are proposed to be selected by a "non-computable" influence embedded in the fundamental level of spacetime geometry at the Planck scale.

I'm slowly slogging through this, failing to understand much of it, the usual really...

Now, I'm not exactly going to challenge Penrose yet (or ever probably), but use of Platonic argument has been done frequently throughout history, yet these arguments have not held up as technology and experimental procedure have advanced. The fundamental indivisibility of the atom is a decent, relatively modern example of something that was once argued to just be, essentially a Platonic truth.

Admittedly - depending on your point of view - you might say that at some point it is not just reasonable, but that it is logically and empircally prudent, to say that we have arrived at some Platonic truth in our understanding of the fundamental nature of reality. But, that would be a big claim. That would want to be a massively experimentally confirmed claim. At this stage I think it would be hard to support with any physical evidence, the idea that we really understand what happens at Planck scales.

So our brains are made of neurons that are interconnected in ways that make us who we are and allow us to do our stuff.

What if stars were to function as neurons, and the interconnecting medium was something like gravity.

Think about it, there are as many stars in a galaxy as there are neurons in a brain, stars go through life cycles like neurons and are subject to influence from forces exerted by other stars. Why couldn't a galaxy become sentient as much as we are?

There is no doubt that there are quantum aspects to our brains, we are building quantum computers along similar principles. I however call horse fluff on this particular article, it just reads terribly and it certainly doesn't sound like almost a decade of "research" went into it.

Click to expand...

no doubt hey? there is no evidence. quantum computers have nothing to do with neural networks. there is only evidence against your claim.

This isn't evidence for a soul. This is evidence for the fact that really smart people can still hold really stupid beliefs. From Noble Prize winning HIV denialists to neurosergeons who believe that not being happy enough is the main cause of cancer, or prescribing homeopathic treatments, idiots abound.

So our brains are made of neurons that are interconnected in ways that make us who we are and allow us to do our stuff.

What if stars were to function as neurons, and the interconnecting medium was something like gravity.

Think about it, there are as many stars in a galaxy as there are neurons in a brain, stars go through life cycles like neurons and are subject to influence from forces exerted by other stars. Why couldn't a galaxy become sentient as much as we are?